Two Against The Ice

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

MIRAGE IN THE ARCTIC

TWO AGAINST
THE ICE

EJNAR MIKKELSEN

Translated from the Danish by

MAURICE MICHAEL

THE TRAVEL BOOK CLUB

121 CHARING CROSS ROAD
LONDON W.C.2

Printed and bound in Great Britain by
The Hollen Street Press, London, W.l

To my loyal and cheerful companion
in North-East Greenlandfrom 1909 to 1912
IVER P. IVERSEN

CONTENTS

chapter

I

The Start of a Greenland Expedition

PAOE

II

II

East Greenland at Last

21

III

Sledging in Darkness and Storm

27

IV

Goodbye to Ship and Comrades

41

V

Alone between Heaven and Earth

48

VI

Still on the Inland Ice

62

VII

Last Days on the Inland Ice

67

VIII

On Land Again

78

IX

In Danmarks Fjord

85

X

Sledging in Slush

99

XI

Water and Hunger

114

XII

Things Get Worse

126

XIII

The Days Shorten

137

XIV

The Last Spurt

145

XV

Winter Again

i 54

XVI

Spring and Summer Hope

166

XVII

The Third Winter

178

XVIII

The Last Six Months

! 9 *

XIX

Hopes Fulfilled

200

Postscript

214

21

CHAPTER I

THE START OF A
GREENLAND EXPEDITION

An expedition is given up — Mylius-Erichsen perishes in the wilds —
Lord Northcliffe’s offer and its consequences — Gay departure —
Ill-omens — We put in to Angmagssalik

The lot of the out-of-work explorer is not a happy one. His head
teems with plans for new travels, but, poor man, he usually lacks
the essential for putting them into effect; for he is broke, stony
broke, and often worse than that. I, at least, seem always to have
been left with a number of larger or smaller bills to meet at the
end of my expeditions, without having any idea where the money
was to come from.

Of course there are fees to be earned for articles and lectures,
and once in a while a cheque for a book about one’s latest expe¬
dition, but they make little difference to a large deficit. Also, you
feel that having returned to a civilized country after several years
in the wilds, you are entitled to a period of ease and freedom
from care.

Every civilized country has its kind people who feel sorry for the
poor explorer with neither roots nor money, and hasten to tell him
to be more sensible and to adopt a staid, quiet and profitable way
of life instead of wasting his time running about the wilds. There
was no need for those kind persons to tell me that; it had been all
too obvious for a number of years. But what are you to do, when
you have been born with eternal unrest in your body and are
drawn to none but those parts of the world that sensible people
regard as fit only for fools?

I made ah honest attempt to be sensible and do as other young
men did, but I was unable to suppress the restlessness within me.
I became touchy and impatient, impossible to live with. I longed
to be off again, away from the fretting ties of civilization, far in

n

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

the north where one could live life to the full and be oneself.

Such was my situation in the early summer of 1908 after return¬
ing home from a two-year expedition to the seas north of Alaska,
where I had sought an undiscovered land, whose existence and
position had not only been worked out in theory, but which had
been seen by a couple of ship’s crews and by Alaskan Eskimoes.
Or so they said.

Unfortunately die theorists were wrong in their calculations,
and it is a mistake uncritically to accept everything people insist
they have seen, for the land was not where it had been calculated
to be. The discovery that it was not land, but an island of ice was
reserved for the foolish youth of the future, those who joyfully
hazard their lives in high-flying aeroplanes and use the stars as
mile posts across the endless vault of the heavens, from which the
view is so vast that those enormous floating icc-islands were at last
discovered. Now they drift slowly with the current across the polar
seas carrying scientists and technicians with them.

My outlook brightened one dark October day, when an old
storm-whipped steamship chugged into Copenhagen and anchored
in the roads. She was Mylius-Erichsen’s expedition ship Danmark
come home with great results from a two-years expedition to the
then remote and unknown land of North-East Greenland. But the
flag at the flagstaff aft was flying at halfmast, and the news soon
spread that the great results obtained had cost three lives,
including that of Mylius-Erichsen himself.

The experienced explorer knew, of course, that his life was not
worth so very much once he had left civilization and been
swallowed up in the wilds, for, unlike our young successors with
their aeroplanes and wireless, we of the older generation had to
manage entirely on our own, without the least possibility of
obtaining outside help, if conditions proved worse than we had
expected. We were aware of that, but it is nevertheless a blow
when a flag at halfmast suddenly drags your thoughts from the
struggles and events of everyday and compels them to fly far off
to where friends and fellows have given their lives trying to wrest

ta

THE START OF A GREENLAND EXPEDITION

from the wilds some of their well-guarded secrets.

I knew two of the men for whom that flag flew: Mylius-Erichsen,
a dauntless idealist, dreamer and poet, and the faithful Green¬
lander Jergen Branlund; and my thoughts went back three or
four years to the time when Mylius and I had had a lot to do with
each other. He had been bent on Greenland, while my inclination
was for Alaska, but we had talked a great deal about the expedi¬
tions we were planning, and for a time I was greatly tempted to let
the unknown land north of Alaska remain unknown for a while
longer and accept Mylius-Erichsen’s offer to become commander
of the expedition ship Danmark . We never managed to agree,
though, for Mylius had some curious ideas (or so I thought them)
about all members of the expedition being equal. Skipper and
mess-boy should have the same say in all decisions: the expedition’s
motto was to be concord, and all that was done both on board
ship and on land was to be agreed by everyone.

It all sounded so beautiful, yet, though I too was regarded as
an incurable idealist, I was also a sailor, and as a seaman with
some experience of ships and people, I could not believe in the
right of consultation for all and the principle of equality either in
a ship or on long and arduous sledging journeys. Mylius, however,
would not give in, and I stuck to my point of view; thus nothing
came of our proposed collaboration, and we went our separate
ways in the North that was so endless in those days.

A month after Danmark's return to Copenhagen, I was in
London again trying my luck with the wealthy ones there. I was
achieving very little, when one day I received a letter from Lord
Northcliffe asking me to go and see him, as he wished to discuss
with me a matter that ought to be of interest to me.

The wishes of the owner of the Daily Mail were royal commands
to men like myself, who always hoped for a fair wind, and
naturally I went, wondering what a mighty newspaper proprietor
could have to discuss with me. He began to speak of the three
men who had lost their lives in Greenland, of their diaries and
journals, none of which had been found except for fragments of

13

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Jorgen Branlund’s, and of what these might contain; he spoke of
E nglish Polar explorers who had vanished and all that England
had done to discover what had happened to them, and he ended
by saying something to the effect that I would never get money
for another expedition to look for the land in the Beaufort Sea,
but that he had a suggestion to make to me: I was to fit out an
expedition to North-east Greenland and try to find the dead
men’s papers which must certainly contain interesting informa¬
tion. Iff could find them he would publish them in the Daily Mail.
He would pay the whole cost of the expedition. I had only to
draw on him — and do my best.

That was an offer for you! Fancy being able to equip an expedi¬
tion without first having to ring at innumerable doorbells to
obtain the necessary money — which in the end always proved too
little. However, as a Dane I did not like the idea of an Englishman
paying for the expedition and of his money acquiring the rights
to what three Danes had given their lives to achieve. It seemed
scarcely right or reasonable, and I blushed for Denmark that
Lord Northcliffe had offered to do what Denmark should have
done — if the task was otherwise practicable.

After a sleepless night with all sorts of thoughts whirling in my
head, I sent Lord Northcliffe a polite refusal, went batk to
Denmark and there announced cheerfully that I now knew what
I wanted, that life had again acquired a purpose: that that
summer I was going to Greenland to try and find Mylius-
Erichsen’s papers.

First I told my old friend and leader of my first expedition of
what had transpired in London, and asked him to speak with the
others on the Committee of the Danmark Expedition, of which he
was a member, and see whether the Committee would give me its
moral support where the public was concerned. It would certainly
do me no harm to have some fine chaps to speak for me, for I was
coming to be known as a pesterer.

I then had a meeting with the Committee, and having received
its promise of both moral and active support, I then began to

»4

THE START OF A GREENLAND EXPEDITION

consider where the money was to come from. Once more I began
the trudge from one to the other of those who both could and, I
felt, should help to pay what it would cost for Denmark to do her
duty to her three sons who had vanished in North-east Greenland.
The Government had given a considerable grant to the Danmark
Expedition, and I was now promised that it would cover half the
cost of mine. After that it was relatively easy to obtain what I
needed, which was 50,000 Crowns in all, and at the end of March
1909 the Committee was able to issue a statement announcing that
the expedition was financially assured.

That was that, and I was glad that I had refused Lord North-
cliffe’s offer. At the same time, however, it ended my friendship
with Lieutenant Koch, my companion on a former expedition,
who had been second-in-command of the Danmark Expedition.
Before leaving Greenland Koch had sledged north to Lamberts
Land, where he had found Jargen Bronlund’s body and in the
dead man’s pocket book Hoeg-Hagen’s sketch maps and Jorgen’s
diary which ended with the memorable and proud words:

SUCCUMBED AT 79 FJORD AFTER ATTEMPTING RETURN ACROSS
THE INLAND ICE IN NOVEMBER. I ARRIVED HERE IN FADING
MOONLIGHT AND COULD GO NO FURTHER BECAUSE OF FROST¬
BITTEN FEET AND THE DARK. THE OTHERS 5 BODIES ARE TO BE
FOUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FJORD IN FRONT OF THE GLACIER
(ABOUT 12 MILES). HAGEN DIED 1 5 NOVEMBER MYLIUS ABOUT
TEN DAYS LATER.

After that Koch thought that all further search for the dead
men’s bodies and any journals or notebooks they might have had,
would be, and must remain, fruitless; also, that he, representing
the remaining members of the Danmark Expedition, had done
everything that could be done to elucidate the fate of their
comrades.

The Committee of the Danmark Expedition, which had under¬
taken to act as my guarantor, shared my opinion that more ought
to be done, and so presumably did the authorities, for otherwise

15

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Parliament would scarcely have agreed to pay half the cost of
sending an expedition to search for further traces of the vanished
men.

In Stavanger I found a suitable ship, Alabama. She was a
Nordland yacht and roomy for a ship of her size, for she was only
forty-five tons. She was cheap too, costing only 6000 Crowns, but
the owner had stripped her of everything that was not nailed
down.

I brought her to Copenhagen, where she was overhauled from
keel to truck and a motor installed, relatively a monster of a
thing, though only 18 h.p. Then, scrubbed and gleaming with
new paint and finery, she was moored at the Royal Greenland
Company’s quay to take on equipment and provisions for sixteen
months, but also so that we could show our fine ship to those who
had made it possible to transform a Nordland yacht into as good
an expedition ship, despite its size, as any that had sailed from
Copenhagen with course set for the ice masses of East Greenland.
People did not expect or require so much in those distant days.

Our friends seemed surprised that the name Alabama , strange to
Danish eyes and ideas, still figured on the ship’s quarter, now
even carved on a mahogany name-board and the letters neatly
gilded; but it is an old superstition of the sea that you should be
very chary of changing a good ship’s name before a long and
dangerous voyage, for grief and misfortune may result from
denying a ship her past. So she was allowed to retain her old
name, though we all realized that we could very easily have found
one far better suited to her mission, than that she already bore.

The members of the Committee, grand-looking gentlemen
wearing frock coats and glossy top hats as though going to a
christening came aboard to inspect the ship. The Prime Minister
also wished to see what we had got with the government’s grant,
and the Director of the Greenland Administration came to assure
us of the support Official Greenland would give us. The American
Ambassador came, also in top hat, to admire the wonder and
make sure for himself that it really was possible to fit out a

16

THE START OF A GREENLAND EXPEDITION

Greenland expedition for the meagre sum we had said would be
enough. As an American he could hardly believe it. Altogether we
had so many visitors on board, that the ship looked much spaailer
than she had before. Thus everyone else thought her far too litde
to endure so long a voyage.

When all outsiders had departed, the Chairman of the Com¬
mittee asked me to assemble our small crew aft and he then read
a message to us from King Frederick VIII. While he was reading
it, a telegraph boy stood waiting on the quayside. His telegram
was from Crown Prince Christian.

The good wishes and attention paid to us were almost over¬
whelming. When the commotion was all over and we were alone,
I went to the little cabin where Lieutenant Vilhelm Laub,
Lieutenant C. A. Jorgensen and I were to make ourselves com¬
fortable on the voyage. Sitting there, my thoughts went back for
a moment to my departure from Vancouver, when I set out on my
last expedition in the little Duchess of Bedford, and how the Harbour
Master’s launch had pursued us carrying an anxious Chinaman
loudly demanding payment for some trousers he had pressed and
sponged, a whole two dollars, and how we had been unable to
scrape that much together, even though we emptied all our
pockets.

There could scarcely have been a greater contrast between then
and now, and if good wishes counted for anything, then all should
go well with us on our journey into distant North-east Greenland.

It was 1909 and summer was at its loveliest when the hour of
departure struck and little Alabama headed out to sea on her long
voyage to East Greenland, accompanied by good wishes and
with hope and confidence at the wheel.

Three weeks later, and for a long time after that, it was as
though all our efforts and hopes were to be frustrated by circum¬
stances over which we had no control.

Our misfortunes began when we came to take over the fifty
sledge dogs that had been bought for us in West Greenland and

>7

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

shipped to the Faroes in one of the Greenland Administration’s
boats. They had been good, strong animals, but the hardships of
the voyage and perhaps thoughtless and unwarrantable treatment
had quite ruined them, so that, after consulting with the authori¬
ties, men who knew what they were talking about, we had to
bring ourselves to shoot every one of them.

The second misfortune came with our Greenlander. He was to
have come with us as hunter and to look after the dogs, but there
he was in bed in one of our cabins with pneumonia, fighting for
his life. The local doctor ordered him to be taken ashore at once,
and so we lost him as well.

Without dogs we were not in a position to do anything, and I
ought to have heeded Fate’s warnings and renounced the attempt.
But I have never liked the idea of turning back from a journey
once begun, and after a week of conferring by telegraph with the
Committee in Copenhagen we left the Faroes and steered for
Angmagssalik, in the hope of a quick voyage and of obtaining the
dogs we needed as a reward for the risk we were running, for such
a trip was a dangerous undertaking so early in the year. However,
all went well and we bought all the dogs the Eskimos could let us
have. We now had as many as had been sent from West Greenland,
but these dogs were nothing like as good, so small and puny that
I felt very doubtful of them. Again I should have given up, but I
took comfort from the thought that perhaps the dogs were better
than they looked, poor comfort indeed.

That, however, was not the end of our misfortunes, far from it.
The motor started giving trouble and then failed just when we
needed it most. At first we told ourselves that these were the
expedition’s teething troubles, and we relieved our feelings in true
sailor’s fashion by cutting the motor to which we had been
looking to take us through the pack ice. It was not long, however,
before we began to wonder whether perhaps the motor itself was
all right, and our real difficulty simply that our highly recom¬
mended mechanic was unable to keep it going. Our doubts
gradually turned to certainty: our mechanic was definitely not up

18

THE START OF A GREENLAND EXPEDITION

to his job and would have to be replaced by another and better,
or else we must abandon the idea of reaching East Greenland so
late in the year.

But where were we to get another and better man? For a third
time I ought to have given up, for all these difficulties and delays
had absorbed most of the short Greenland summer during which
we should have achieved so much. Luckily the Danish Govern¬
ment’s inspection ship Islands Falk was at Iceland, to which we
came in a storm with our puny dogs, broken-down motor and
useless mechanic. I bewailed my fate to the captain, and he, stout
fellow, was only too ready to do what he could. The telegraph
began to work; the Danish Admiralty was most considerate and
after an exchange of telegrams the captain was able to say to his
crew that any who wished was at liberty to volunteer as mechanic
on board Alabama , and would earn the Admiralty’s thanks for
helping a good cause.

One man volunteered, I was told, just one. His name was Iver
P. Iversen, and it seemed to be agreed that if anyone could get a
machine to work as it was meant to, that man was Iversen. This
sounded better, and I went aboard Islands Falk and asked to see
him. He came down to the captain’s cabin, short and slight and
not much to look at, but he was all afire to get at the motor which
a brother mechanic had given up and which now lay in innumer¬
able pieces in our little engine-room.

‘Well, what do you say, Iversen?’ the captain asked. ‘Can you
master the motor? And will you go with the expedition up there?’

Iversen replied unhesitatingly that he would, and that if there
were no parts missing, he would get that motor going all right.
And even if there was a piece or two missing, he would patch it
up quite satisfactorily. And he would like to go with the expedi¬
tion as well. He had wanted to do that for a long time, ever since
he had read the articles on Ejnar Mikkelsen’s expedition that came
out in Familie Journal.

So it was decided. Iversen could not possibly be less talented
and energetic than the mechanic we had had so far.

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Some hours later, while it was still night, Islands Falk passed us
the end of a hawser to tow us northwards, and Iversen came
across to little Alabama after a protracted leave-taking from his
gay shipmates in the trim man-of-war.

Once we were clear of land, Iversen gave us a cheery nod and
climbed down to the motor. Shortly afterwards we heard the
clang of swift hammer strokes on ringing steel, the rasp of files,
the clatter of engine parts being shoved here and there, all of
which was accompanied either by merry song or thoughtful
whistlings, and interrupted by short periods of silence, as Iversen
pondered his problems. Life had suddenly come to an engine-
room that till then had been so dead.

Laub came to me as I stood enchanted, listening to the sounds
of bubbling energy and activity coming up from the black hole,
and we agreed that Iversen certainly knew how to work. Not till
after a day and a night’s towing, when the time had come to part
company with Islands Falk, did Iversen stick his head out of the
engine-room. He was black and badly in need of sleep; he was
bruised from the impact of slithering, heavy bits of iron, but he
showed his white teeth in a joyous grin and said: ‘Well, skipper,
just give the word and the motor will start.’

To our great joy and surprise the motor really did start, and
what is more, it went without hissing, coughing or clattering, or
emitting suffocating fumes. And, wonder of wonders, it only
stopped when it should, and obediently started again when we
had need of its power.

Now at last things seemed to be improving, but already all these
unforeseen difficulties and setbacks had cost us a month and a half
of the best of the summer weather, of which we should have made
the utmost use. By the time Islands Falk left us a little north of
Iceland, we should have long since been through the ice, which
we could not expect even to meet for another two or three days.

*o

CHAPTER II

EAST GREENLAND AT LAST

A hard, struggle with pack-ice — Winter harbour — Men and animals
prepare for winter — A change of plan

I t was already late in the year, when above the western horizon
we saw the yellowy-white sheen in the sky that betrays the
proximity of ice. The weather was the worst imaginable for
trying to negotiate pack ice. Low tom clouds poured across the
heavens like a beaten enemy, pursued by a howling north storm
that sent scurry after scurry of snow to envelop us and the wind-
whipped seas that broke in foaming surf against the edge of the
ice.

Undoubtedly, the only defensible course of action would have
been to stand off and wait for better weather before entering the
ice. But beyond the fringe of crushed ice and noisy breakers we
could glimpse long lanes of open water between the drifting floes,
a negotiable path towards the west and the coast of Greenland.

It was a hypnotising, tempting sight, too tempting for an
impatient person; so, when I saw the hint of an opening in the
fringe of violently pitching floes, my eagerness to get to the west
sent caution and care to the winds: the opportunity must not be
wasted. While I climbed aloft in order to try from the masthead
to guide the ship through the narrow leads between the floes,
Iversen started the motor; then with sheets let fly and the motor
at full speed we roared towards the edge of the ice, where the
breakers were making as much noise as they will on the west
coast of Jutland in an on-shore storm.

Too late I began to regret my rashness; too late I realized that
there was almost no hope that we should come with whole skins
through that confusion of ice and thundering breakers fifty yards
to leeward. But we could not now get back to the open sea, for
both sea and wind were dead against us. There was nothing to do,

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

but hope that Fate would smile on us, and that we might slip
through a short narrow channel between two large floes, while
they were still lying apart in that seedling commotion. Once
through that channel we were bound to find things easier, for a
couple of hundred yards in from the edge the ice looked navigable.

Our luck deserted us, however, just at the crucial moment, and
on the crest of a wave Alabama ran at a speed of six or seven knots
on to a spur of ice, struck so hard that hull and mast groaned,
and there she was stuck fast on the ice amidst seething breakers.

The sails flapped violently, as we swung up into the wind that
clamoured round us. The surf broke in over the rail and washed
to and fro across the deck. The dogs squealed with fright at the
water, the reports of the cracking sails, and the thunderous blows
that shook the ship and made every plank in her hull groan.

It seemed the end.

Luckily, we had no time to think about that. I had to get down
from the violently swaying mast as fast as I could and help the
others on deck to ward off the worst bumps, and, if possible, get
the ship afloat again. We toiled with long boat hooks, ran about
on heaving floes that seas were continually sweeping, trying
to get ropes made fast to protruding pieces of ice, so as to coax
the ship into the open and more or less calm water farther in
among the ice floes.

We had better luck than I deserved, and after an hour’s
struggling, with the loss of the ship an all too obvious possibility,
we got her through the narrow barrier of ice and into relatively
clear water.

Naturally, the ship had suffered minor damage from this rough
treatment, a split rudder-stock, for example. But did that really
matter? Whatever the damage, as long as the ship would float
and could be steered, she would still serve her purpose, which was
to bring us to some place on the coast from which we could start
out on our sledge journeys. Afterwards we would always be able
to get back home to Denmark one way or another, whether we
had a ship of our own or not.

aa

EAST GREENLAND AT LAST

There then followed happy days when we made good progress
among the ice-floes which were many miles in extent, and days of
storm with pack-ice that clasped our little ship with so hard a
grip, that it was touch and go whether she would be crushed like
an eggshell or come free and get into the open water we could
see so close ahead. And so, one day late in the summer, we reached
the coast of East Greenland.

We were a good bit farther south than we had reckoned, some
two hundred miles in fact, and for that we would have to suffer
when we began sledging. There was nothing to be done about it,
however, for the ice was packed tight as far north as we could see,
and the few small gaps in the pack that could be glimpsed here
and there, kept altering with change of tide and current and led
nowhere, except possibly into new dangers similar to those from
which we had just escaped. Thus, we made a virtue of necessity
and were as cautious as it was possible to be. The days were
growing shorter and the autumnal storms beginning seriously to
harass everything that moved on land or ice, so we crept circum¬
spectly in between ice and skerries and found a haven which was
as far north as we could get with our ship. There we let go the
anchor, stretched hawsers to the land and prepared the ship for
the winter by stretching her main sail across her from stem to
stem like a tent.

The migrant birds had long since flown to the fair lands of the
south ; and there were not even the harsh cries of the sea birds to
be heard, for an ice-covered sea gave them no food. Now and
again we could hear the hoarse croak of a solitary, hungry raven,
gliding like the white owls through the clear quivering air high
above our heads, scanning the land with its sharp eyes in search
of lemmings, a frightened hen ptarmigan (though preferably
ptarmigan chicks), or a leveret, all of which was welcome fare in
the harsh days of autumn.

Lone polar bears caught the heavenly smells from our little
camp from afar and paid us visits by both day and night, hoping
to be able to share in whatever it was that smelled so good. The

23

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

dogs gave tongue and bravely tackled the great animals that
snarled and struck at their puny adversaries with paws that on
one occasion sent one of them flying with blood pouring from
great wounds. At that the other dogs fell upon the battered bleed¬
ing wretch and zealously finished off what the bear had so well
begun.

We, of course, could not refrain from taking a hand in the gory
fight. Rifles cracked, bullets whined, and as a rule the bear
discovered too late that we demanded the death penalty for its
attempt to purloin what was undeniably ours. And when the bear
eventually collapsed in a pool of blood, we had to wield our whips
to keep the dogs off it. Fresh steaming bear’s blood can so excite a
half-starved sledge dog that it will forget all fear of its master, and
if it has once snatched a lump of fresh bear's meat, it will defend
it to the last shred, and almost choke itself in an attempt to
swallow it whole, before the others can wrest the prize away.

On shore we now and again saw a large whitish animal sneaking
about in our vicinity. It resembled a large dog, and was in fact
one of the greedy polar wolves which have since disappeared
from East Greenland, though in those days they were quite
numerous. Our dogs almost always sensed their presence and
attacked in a solid bunch with howls and snarls and much barking.
Then there was war between brothers, but as a rule it was all
over by the time we reached the battlefield with our rifles, and
the torn, bleeding dogs, whimpering and cowed, sought protection
beside us. We never managed to hit a wolf, for they sneaked off
as soon as they saw help coming.

There were foxes, too, both white and blue. They gobbled up
the remains of any food the dogs might miraculously have over¬
looked, and when a bear had been laid low, they came and gorged
on its meat and blood side by side with the dogs.

There was plenty for us to attend to as the darkness, cold and
howling storms of autumn began in earnest. The dogs had to be
tended, sledges lashed, provisions weighed and packed for our
impending sledge journey to Lamberts Land, and there was also

«4

EAST GREENLAND AT LAST

a certain amount to be done on the ship. We took it in turns to
be cook, and at night we slept the sleep of tired young men,
disturbed only by the weird sounds as the frost bit deep into the
hull and imprisoned moisture froze and burst frost cracks in the
planks, or when the ice was fissured by the frost and screamed
like a man in distress as it split.

The harder it froze, the more we rejoiced, for we had a long
sledge journey ahead of us and the earlier we could make a start
the better. The many difficulties of my winter’s journey along
the coast of Alaska were still so fresh in my memory that I wanted
to get this journey over before it became too cold and dark. In
addition, we had to cross the open sea to Koldewey Island, no
great distance when measured with protractors on the chart —
only forty miles — but uncomfortable in prospect, when we sat on
a hilltop near our winter harbour and stared out across the sea
towards the north; for the sea was in continual rapid movement,
and where there appeared to be a practical path for sledges one
day, there was almost open water the next. How were we to get
across that stretch of ice and Water with sledges and dogs?

Was it even possible to get as far as Lamberts Land with sledges
so late in the year? Soon there would be snowstorms blowing day
after day; the going would always be heavy, and the darkness so
intense that we would be able to sledge for only a few hours each
day. It was 330 miles to Lamberts Land, and we hoped to be able
to return. Even under ideal circumstances seven hundred miles is
a long way to sledge. And we would have everything against us.
Gould it even be done, conditions being what they were?

The attempt ought to be made all the same, as we were now
forced to alter our original plans completely, because the delays
we had suffered at the Faroes and Iceland, and then the voyage
to Angmagssalik for new dogs, had cost us more than a month of
the best period for navigating the ice. As a result, we had reached
the coast of East Greenland so late that we had to consider our¬
selves lucky to have got as far north as we had, and to have found
a relatively snug winter-harbour at the north-eastern point of

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Shannon Island, though that unfortunately was still some 130
miles south of Danmarks Havn at which we had been aiming.

The way things had turned out, I felt, compelled us to attempt
the sledge journey to Lamberts Land, and my rash readiness to
take a chance drowned the voice of common sense, telling me that
the hard frost might easily come early and make the sea ice
relatively safe to sledge on, that the autumnal storms could be
few and of short duration, and that, since the moon would be full
at the time we could expect to reach Lamberts Land, not even
the darkness should put insuperable difficulties in the way of our
search.

I explained to my companions the considerable difficulties we
must expect to meet on our journey. Jorgensen was perfectly
prepared to accompany me, difficulties or no difficulties, and then
one day Iversen came up to me and said: ‘Look here, the motor
isn’t going to be used for the time being, so I’m out of a job.
May I come on the sledge journey to Lamberts Land ?*

Iversen was the smallest and slightest of my companions, but
there was no doubt whatever of his determination, strength and
thirst for adventure. It was true that he did not now have anything
particular to do on board; he had volunteered of his own accord
and laughed at all the warnings which my common sense still
kept giving me and which I now passed on to him. ‘Just you go
where you want to go, 5 he said. ‘I’ll keep up with you all right, in
spite of open water, storm, snow, darkness or any other devilry! 5

So it was decided. After that, all that remained was to see that
everything was ready for the journey and then to wait for an
early severe frost, which we hoped would bridge the sea between
Shannon and Koldewey Island and lay a solid covering of ice all
along the open coast northwards from Danmarks Havn.

We had to get to Lamberts Land then, autumn or no autumn.
So why think so much of all the things that spoke against making
the attempt? It had to be made and that was all there was to it.

a6

CHAPTER III

SLEDGING IN DARKNESS AND STORM

Hard sledging conditions — The dogs die of exhaustion — Darkness,
storm and driving snow — Lamberts Land—for gen Bronlund's grave —
Hurricane at Danmarks Havn — Frost bite — We arrive back

From the beginning of September the sledges stood loaded and
ready to leave, and we began trying to accustom the dogs to go
more or less peacefully together in teams that we made up from
those we thought best fitted for the long journey, irrespective of
which companions the dogs themselves preferred. It cost us a deal
of sweat and shouting, for dogs are refractory brutes; and our
whips had to fall heavily on the obstinate ones which tried to get
out of doing the work for which they were bred, and which
yelped with pain as the lash struck them or howled with longing
to join the gay gang of their unharnessed fellows.

It was the equinox before we at last got away, but in spite of
everything that journey went much better than our pigheadedness
deserved. Every day we sledged over thin, yielding ice that all too
often broke under the sledges or was burst by an inquisitive
playful narwhal, frolicking in the cold water and breaking the
shining crust of the ice with its back or long unicorn’s tooth;
fascinating to see, but highly dangerous. Often the ice was so thin
that we could see swimming narwhals through it, and that was
not so pleasant. Time and again we had to spend slow hours in
cold and driving snow waiting for the current to bring the new
ice together and thus build a horribly frail bridge between the
drifting ice-floes, across which we could go in relative safety with
our sledges and belongings.

When the weather compelled us to halt, or if the darkness put
further sledging out of the question, we almost always managed to
find a relatively solid floe on which to pitch tent, and that was ajoy
indeed to people who had so few joys as we did on that journey.

87

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

The dogs had a hard time of it, for it was exhausting work
hauling the heavy sledges over the salty surface of the new ice on
which the runners stuck. Splinters of the new ice, as sharp as
glass, cut the dogs’ pads to pieces, so that the snow in their tracks
was tinged with blood; and the occasional duckings they had in
the icy water were enough to rob even the most intrepid dog of
its courage. Altogether it was a nightmare journey for our poor
whimpering dogs, and thfe torment of it drained their strength
and broke their courage long before we sledged into Danmarks
Havn.

By that time one dog had already died, most probably of over¬
work, and several were so weak they looked as if they would go
the same way. Thus, whether we liked it or not, after that journey
of sixteen days, which ought not to have taken more than five, we
had to give the dogs some days rest at the Danmark Expedition’s
hut, which lay on some flat grassland between the ice of the sea
and the mountains inland.

My companions and I had had nearly as hard a time as the
dogs, and we also needed a rest, but tempting though that was, we
could not help casting glum looks at the swiftly lengthening
darkness, which was becoming more and more threatening as the
days passed, stormy and with driving snow and relative warmth;
and all that at a time of year when we had every right to expect
severe frost and sparkling stars. The moon could not fail us, as
everything else had so far, and it did occasionally show us its
encouraging face between the scudding clouds, promising more
light as soon as it had attained full stature and climbed higher
into the heavens — at the same time as the days grew darker.

We dared not stay long in Danmarks Havn, and after four days
of rest and security, we again headed north. All the time we
battled against storm and dirty weather, sledging across either
brittle new ice or violently packed old ice filled with pitfalls full
of soft snow, so deep that we often sank up to our waists, while at
times there was little more than the dogs’ heads and tails to be
seen above the surface.

SLEDGING IN DARKNESS AND STORM

It was arduous sledging. Darkness fell earlier every day as we
struggled northwards towards even deeper darkness; and the
driving snow prevented us making out where wc were. The dogs
grew rapidly weaker and weaker. They had a worse time of it in
that hard autumn weather than any dogs I had ever seen. And
what was worst of all, the glowing disc of the sun, which seemed
to have no heat but cold in it, was sinking with horrifying speed
towards the southern horizon, dropping a sun’s diameter or two
each time we saw it. On October 25, a calm, clear day, we saw
the sun for the last time in 1909.

The sun made a lovely sight glowing in the midst of a vast
expanse of orange red that imperceptibly turned into a delicate
green shimmer, which, in its turn, merged with the blue of the
sky high above the horizon where the stars were already beginning
to sparkle. But the northern arch of the heavens was dark, black
right down to the horizon, grim and menacing. And it was into
that black vault that our way led. It would soon be all round us.

We halted a moment in our laborious march, so that we could
say goodbye to the sun, which we were not to see again till
towards the end of February. So it sank below the horizon,
sending its last shafts of fire across ice and land, kindling a brief
blaze among the massive mountains deep within the inland ice
and lending a fleeting warm colour to the black mountains round
us; and we bowed our heads as though a dear friend had died and
his coffin just been lowered into the ground. We felt horribly
alone and abandoned in the encompassing desolation. Our
shadows ran from us towards the north, indicated the way we had
to go — and vanished.. The colours round us faded. The mountains
stood black, both near us and in the distance, and even the ice now
looked different from when the sun was shining on it and casting
shadows, which have more effect on a man’s state of mind than is
generally realized.

The dogs whimpered under the lash of the cold, and when we
went to move on again one of them was dead, dead of exhaustion.
Another got to its feet with difficulty, pulled for an hour or so,

89

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

stumbled, fell, lay a moment looking at vis with handsome
imploring eyes; then it rose laboriously but pulled no more:
walking with loose trace, it fell for the last time and died an hour
later.

We quartered the two dead dogs so that the others might live,
for their flesh could not help being a bit more nourishing than
the excrement and sealskin straps the dogs ate whenever there
was a chance; and so our caravan toiled on again towards the
north and the darkness. High above our heads a full moon swam
past the throng of the stars, lighting our way even though its
bright beams froze us to the quick.

There followed arduous days with endless toil and dying dogs,
when we started long before the faint daylight began and camped
in the evening by the gleam of a little lantern. But Lamberts
Land was near. Its grim, vertical mountains towered just ahead of
us and always we had with us the thought of the three men, who
almost three years before to the day had struggled through the
dark to the gates of death with frost eating at their hands and
feet.

I remembered how gay and confident Mylius had been in
sunny Copenhagen before he went to Greenland and I to Alaska,
and I thought of his last apathetic effort before he collapsed from
exhaustion with the same evil landscape before him as we now had
close at hand. And I thought of Jargen Brenlund and how he had
come to me three or four years before and said: ‘I have promised
to go with Mylius wherever he goes, and I will not break my word
to him. I am going with him, but I wish you all possible success
on your journey.’

This faithful Greenlander had kept his word to the bitter end.
Then, in the waning moonlight, he had left his companion’s body
somewhere in front of the glacier we could just glimpse in the
gathering darkness, and continued on alone. Each of his tottering
steps from his companion’s camping place to the land ahead of
us, which he reached with frost gnawing at his feet, must have
cost him tremendous effort and torment. But he was determined

30

SLEDGING IN DARKNESS AND STORM

to reach a place where his body and the information he carried
about the unknown land, information that the three had given
their lives to obtain, might stand a chance of being found, as they
were some months later by Lieutenant Koch.

Wishing to be alone with my memories of dead friends, I
sledged slightly ahead of the others for the last of the way; I
reached the coast and sledged on slowly level with the land, my
head full of all sorts of melancholy thoughts. Then I caught sight
of foxes’ tracks, first one, then many of them radiating like spokes
from a small hole in the snow and extending far out across ice and
land. The tracks showed that several foxes had been coming and
going to and from a lair lying beneath the black hole in the snow.
That hole struck me as a thing of horror, the horror of death, or,
as conditions had been three years before, it was rather the
entrance to the world of peace and rest.

I was convinced that beneath the white covering with its litde
black hole from which the foxes’ tracks radiated across the
desolate dead, white land, lay the mortal remains of Jorgen
Branlund; that it was there where I was standing that the faithful
Greenlander had reached his journey’s end, sunk down exhausted,
overcome by the cold and the solitude. Even so, by the fading light
of the moon, he had managed with numbed hands to write that
moving account of the sledge party’s misfortune, and so lain down
to sleep the last sleep after so placing his diary that neither wild
animals nor the raging gusts of winter could wrest it from his
body once that had stiffened in death.

The others caught me up and, as their dogs dropped exhausted,
I pointed to the hole and said, ‘We have reached our goal in
this trackless land. There lies Jargen Branlund.’

It was clear and still, as we put up our tent. The effort had been
great and we found little to say. The full moon shone, the stars
twinkled and the northern lights flickered across the sky. Around
us all was silent and quiet, the stillness of death and utter exhaus¬
tion, except for the heavy breathing of the dogs, which were too
tired and weary of life to raise their heads, even when a fox

31

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

darted out of the hole, halted a moment in horror at all that it
saw and then vanished in great bounds.

The next day — as there was no day there in Lamberts Land,
where day and night were almost equally dark, it is perhaps
better to say: when the necessary number of hours had passed —
we dug the snow away from Jorgen Branlund’s body and found a
bag with a calendar and a pocket-book in which there were a
couple of sketches of Mylius-Erichsen and Hoeg-Hagen, some
views of Danmark Fjord and a few leaves with writing in Eskimo,
some utensils and cartridges, and finally, near the body, some tins
of penunican and other food.

We gathered stones, as many big ones as we could manage,
and piled them over the body which we had wrapped in a shroud
that Fru Mylius-Erichscn had given us, asking us to use it to
cover the body of her husband or of his friend, Jorgen Bronlund.
Thus we made a little grave-chamber, which the foxes could not
break into and which would long stand as a monument, however
poor, to a fine and gallant Greenlander. He had given his life in
order to remain true to his word and to the Danish companions
with whom he had journeyed into the unknown. Together they
had dispersed the darkness which since the day of creation had
lain over that part of North-east Greenland, which he had helped
Mylius-Erichsen and Heeg-Hagen to travel and map. Those three
brave men had suffered greatly, and in the end they had paid the
most bitter price that man can pay for the privilege of seeing
unknown land around him — and making it known.

It was a suitable resting-place for that much travelled Green¬
lander. Behind him towered the dark, almost vertical mountains,
and in front of him lay the ice-clad sea. From his last resting place
you could see the way that he and his companions must have
come down from the hostile inland ice, and the place where
Mylius-Erichsen and Heeg-Hagen had sunk exhausted and died
‘in the middle of the fjord, in front of the glacier, about ten miles.’

If we were to find the other two bodies and their diaries, we
would have to follow the land until we reached the glacier, out

3a

SLEDGING IN DARKNESS AND STORM

from which the two were supposed to lie; then we must continue
till we were ten miles out from the glacier, at the spot whence
Jorgen Branlund had so painfully stumbled on frost-bitten feet.
Luckily the weather was still and clear; the full moon was shining
and lit up the landscape, and we were able to see quite far by its
bright, unreal light. Leaving the sledges, we continued on foot,
which we did so as to keep as close a contact as possible with the
coast and the ice, and also because our dogs were dead tired and
had to rest.

To our surprise we found extensive floes of new ice wherever we
went ‘in the middle of the fjord in front of tire glacier,’ and it
soon became obvious that during the previous summer the old
sea ice must have been broken up as far in as the glacier itself. It
was therefore hopeless to search the ice, for if the three men’s last
camp had been on the sea-ice, as Jargen Branlund had written in
his diary describing their last days, their bodies must either have
drifted away with the old sea ice when the storms and waves of
autumn broke it up, or have sunk into the sea when the ice melted
in the summer sunshine.

There was no trace of the men’s gear or of a camp on land
either, and after spending three days in the area, luckily with
good weather and bright moonlight, it was perfectly clear that
any further search would be pointless.

Nor could we wait longer, for bad weather was threatening and
we had to get away. The clouds were hanging low, so we struck
camp and set off southwards, away from the horrible darkness
that blotted out all the unevennesses in the very rough ice and com¬
pelled us to stumble along blindly, unable even to see where we
were treading. The moon was now less than half and shed little
light: we could see that sledging south was going to be even more
difficult than the journey north, and that had been bad enough.

The only comfort we had to ding to was the hope that the
everlasting storms would now blow our way, instead of being
against us as on the journey north. That would have been a great
help. But whether the journey were to prove easier or harder, we

33

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

had to make a start, for there was no time to lose if we were to
hope ever to get back to the ship.

It was a long way we had to go, and the dogs were almost dead
beat. Two of them died while we were at Lamberts Land, and
when we set off back southwards several others were unable to
tighten their traces; they staggered as they walked and stumbled
repeatedly. They could not go on. One of them lay motionless on
the sledge and would soon be dead. Three dogs died on the first
day of our homeward journey, and the next morning while we
were cooking our spartan breakfast in the tent and Iversen was
busied outside preparing for departure, I heard him exclaim:
‘Now devil take me, have you ever seen the like of that? Max,
God help me, has eaten Devil!*

I knew well enough that the dogs were dreadfully hungry, but
that they were so hungry that they would attack a weaker fellow
and eat its thin body was a thing I had never experienced before,
nor thought possible. It was ghastly and boded us no good.

Devil was dead, and that was not such a loss, for he was a bad
dog who stole from his companions and shirked his work, if he
could see his way to do so; but what was much worse was that
Max, a big, strong and willing dog, one of our best, over-ate
himself on Devil and died of it before the day was out.

To add to the day’s difficulties we had a violent snowstorm.
The snow swirled across the ice covering it with a thick, soft layer,
through which we and the dogs had to wade, laboriously dragging
the sledges behind us. Even worse was in store, for when we
camped we discovered that our last tin of paraffin had leaked and
a considerable quantity of the precious stuff run out on to the
snow. This meant that until we reached our most northerly depot
and could get more paraffin, we must have hot food and drink
only once a day. That was almost the worst of all.

It was a ghastly journey. We pressed on as hard as we could,
fully conscious of the fact that we were fighting for our lives; and
when you are doing that, you can accomplish wonders. Our pro¬
visions were almost at an end and our strength was not what it

34

SLEDGING IN DARKNESS AND STORM

had been. When at length we reached Danmarks Havn with its
hut, warmth and food, we even expressed a hope that a storm
might compel us to stay there for a day or two, both for the dogs’
sakes and our own. Scarcely had the words crossed our lips than a
storm was howling and racing across land and ice in violent
gusts, flinging pebbles and crust-ice against the hut, while we sat
snugly indoors with the dogs, resting, eating and sleeping, enjoying
the savage fury of the storm which increased till it reached
hurricane force. It was not until the ninth day after reaching
Danmarks Havn that we were able to continue our journey.

By this time we were really anxious. The darkness was lengthen¬
ing at a disturbing pace, and it was going to be very difficult
groping our way across the pitfalls of the ice — if indeed there
was any ice, for it seemed more than probable that the violent
storm had broken it all up and swept it far out to sea. If the ice
were not broken, however, we ought to be able to make a fairly
quick journey back to Shannon, for the long rest had allowed the
dogs to recover. They were comparatively brisk and frisky as we
harnessed them to the sledges and hopefully set off towards the
faint gleam of light that, like a beacon in the darkness, showed us
the direction in which we should go. In the centre of that gleam
lay our ship, some 130 miles away in the south.

Our hopes of a quick end to that journey, on which everything
had gone against us right from the very first, were disappointed
as soon as we got outside the Danmarks Havn and came to the
stonn-tossed sea ice, where soft white snow was lying several feet
deep between the great packs of ice that we had to cross, and we
sank deep into it. Although the dogs were well rested, they could
not haul the sledges through the soft snow, scarcely even with a
man to help, and things went black before our eyes as the three
of us hauled on the sledges to move them no more than a few
yards. This was such a labour and we were so fagged that, despite
the cold and our anxiety to press on, we had to stop for a breather
nearly every ten minutes.

So we toiled southwards yard by yard, and the twilight had

n

35

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

turned into the deep darkness of night long before exhaustion
forced us to stop and pitch our tent only very few miles from
Danmarks Havn. The shortness of the distance we had covered
was bad enough, but that was not the extent of the day’s worries.
Once the dogs had been fed and we had gobbled up our penunican
and got ready for bed by pulling off our moccasins and stockings,
it was discovered that both of Jorgensen’s feet were badly frost¬
bitten. All the toes and the beginning of the foot were swollen
and of the yellow, waxen colour of a corpse; rime crystals glittered
on the skin.

Horrified, we asked how he could have got so badly frost-bitten.
He thought that it must have been shortly after we set out that
morning, when he had trodden through into a fissure filled with
water, and the water had rim into his moccasins. He had not
paid particular attention to it, especially as the first searing pain
in his feet quickly passed off; and even though his feet had seemed
to become strangely insensible afterwards, he had said nothing so
as not to waste precious time.

We spent most of the night rubbing his feet and warming them,
and by degrees we did get a little life back into some of the toes.
But when we had done all that could be done and crept into our
sleeping bags, I felt pretty certain that Jorgensen would not be
able to come on the big sledge journey across the inland ice that
We planned for the spring.

I was quite certain of this when we removed the bandages a
week later and saw the blue-coloured toes that were the all too
evident signs of frost-bite. Iversen thought the same as I did, for
a while later, as I sat on a hummock of ice during one of our all
too frequent rests, he came up to me in the gloom and asked if I
thought Jorgensen’s feet would be all right by the spring. Un¬
fortunately, I replied, I did not. Iversen paused, thumped his leg
with his whip once or twice, then said: ‘That’s what I thought.
But if you like, I’ll gladly go with you across the inland ice to
Danmarks Fjord. It can’t be much worse a journey than the one
we can almost see the end of now.’

36

SLEDGING IN DARKNESS AND STORM

A stout fellow, Iversen!

We toiled and struggled southwards, sledging in storms, snow
and darkness so black that I had to let my leader dog go ahead
on a long trace and leave her to find the best way through the
jumble of ice. By doing that I could be sure of warning in time
and not drive into deep holes or vainly try to force the sledge up
packs that were yards high, yet impossible to see in that darkness
without shadows. We waded through deep, soft snow which
would bear neither us, the dogs, nor the sledges which sank deep
into the yielding stuff and were continually capsizing, when it
took the combined efforts of Iversen and myself to right them. We
sledged over old ice with hummocks yards high and holes yards
deep. We hauled the sledges across new ice that was solid enough,
but covered with slush saturated with salt, and this penetrated the
soles of our moccasins, through our thick wool socks, right to our
icy feet that winced at the cold. It was good that they did, for
then we knew that our toes had not yet become frost-bitten. That
salt ice was a hell both for us and for the few dogs we still had
left; but there was no escaping it, for in the darkness we could
not see whether we should go to the right or to the left to avoid
its sting. We just had to keep a more or less straight course
towards our goal beneath the twinkling stars in the south, and
take what the ice had to offer us with what equanimity we could
muster — which was not much.

Our dogs were utterly exhausted. Although we had stayed too
long in Danmarks Havn, the rest had not been long enough to
restore the dogs’ strength, and one after the other dropped in its
traces, killed by the wet and by the effort of helping us to haul
the sledges those last seventy miles or so of the seven hundred we
had sledged. Dead, they were skinned and cut up and given to
the others which still had spirit enough to wish to eat. It was not
much exaggeration when, one day after a rest, Iversen called out
to me as I moved off: ‘Hi! Wait a bit! Don’t go off into the dark
till I’ve got my dogs propped on their feet and can induce them
to move.’

37

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

My leader dog, the incomparable Girly, and I were in the lead,
trying to find the easiest way through the darkness. Behind me I
could make out the second sledge, driven by Iversen, who flung
his weight into the trace over his shoulder whenever the sledge
had to negotiate the slightest unevenness, toiled and fought to
keep up with the lighter, leading sledge. In the rear came
Jorgensen who had to cling to the uprights in order not to fall,
for his feet would scarcely carry him and were so painful that
every step was like being cut with knives.

We were a pitiable little procession. The dogs no longer whined,
did not even snarl at each other; only now and again did plaintive
gasps come from the poor brutes when the going became too
heavy or the salt slush too biting. My two companions had still
not lost their sense of humour, for now and again Iversen would
strike up, and Jorgensen bravely join in and intone some lines of
an old psalm used at weddings: ‘How lovely it is together,
together .. .’

Naturally it was. At any rate it was better than being quite
alone in that hell of darkness, ice, snow, storm and cold; but, as
things were, it took a good deal of courage and confidence to be
able to sing at all. I felt no desire to do so.

At length we caught a glimpse of the mountains on Shannon
during the twilight of noon, and that spurred us to renewed
efforts. For the next two or three days the land seemed to get no
nearer, but then all at once the black mass of mountain had
heaved itself up over the horizon and blotted out the lowest of the
stars. It could not be long now; one more night in our sleeping
bags that were frozen when we got in and later running with
moisture, and then ... ? The toil, the effort and the struggle to
get through had been so great that we could scarcely believe that
it would soon be over, let alone rejoice at the prospect. All sense
of joy had been tortured out of us.

We knew that now we had only a few miles left, yet every star
had long been kindled in the sky before we reached the crossing
place. There we left one sledge, and with Jorgensen on the other,

38

SLEDGING IN DARKNESS AND STORM

well covered with our stiff-frozen sleeping-bags and warmed by
the weakest of our dogs, Iversen and I flung ourselves into the
traces and hauled, hauled for all we were worth, cracked our
whips to get our few dogs to make a final spurt, inciting them with
yells and cries that we hoped would also be heard by our com¬
panions out there in the darkness. Thus, on December 17, after
fifteen days toil from Danmarks Havn, our eighty-six days long
sledge journey finally ended; for suddenly, in the pitch dark
night, with the aurora borealis flaming above our heads, the
solid outline of the ship loomed in front of us like a section of
denser night.

A light or two gleamed in the darkness; then we heard a dog
howl and at that our poor brutes also understood that rest was
near. They gave short joyful barks, such as we had not heard for
a long time, pricked their ears and in joyful anticipation of all
that now was within hearing and smelling distance, they picked
up their tails and pulled as they had not pulled for a long time.
They managed quite a speed, and with Iversen and I lumbering
stiff-leggedly alongside in a weird kind of gallop we reached
Alabama while the others came hurrying to meet us with lanterns
to light the last bit of the way of our seven-hundred-mile long
journey through the darkness to Lamberts Land and back.

We stumbled aboard and down into the cabin, where glad
companions thrust great mugs of scalding coffee into our hands
and wonderful thick slices of white bread with mountains of
butter. And meanwhile, the ice in our clothes melted. We dripped
water, and pools formed under us. Then, to the others’ amazement,
we began to peel off our sledging clothes, layer after layer, and
all as dirty and wet as a floorcloth fit to be thrown away.

Nor were our dogs forgotten in the joy of our homecoming; they
were given as much as they could eat and more. Of the twenty-
three fit dogs we had had harnessed to our sledges when we left
the ship on September 26, only seven returned with us; the rest
of the faithful creatures had died on the way of exhaustion,
hunger and cold. A sledge dog’s life is a harsh one.

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

However, we did not think of that in our overwhelming joy at
having got back; perhaps, too, we had grieved enough over each
dog as it fell. So we stretched out in our warm, dry bunks, enjoying
the security and the rest, and so we fell asleep in the delicious
knowledge that it would be the same the next day. By the side of
my bunk my faithful Girly lay and licked my hand; it was very
largely due to her that we had not fared even worse.

We had got back at least, and the hardships of the journey were
almost forgotten the moment we were sitting there with our mugs
of scalding coffee, and completely forgotten when we had changed
into dry things. And then — in a week it would be Christmas; in
only four days time the sun would stop gliding towards the south
and start coming back to us, putting the fearful darkness to flight,
bathing land and ice in its sunlight, thus enabling us to see where
we were treading and making sledging a joy.

Thus there was plenty to be joyful about that first night in the
safe shelter of Alabama .

40

CHAPTER IV

GOODBYE TO SHIP AND COMRADES

Five men on the inland ice—Farwell party—Jorgensen and linger in
Alabama — A friend’s gift

It was a sparkling clear day in April 1910 and the inland ice
stretched as far as the eye could see, a glittering white surface
that was only broken here and there by blue ice-hummocks that
attracted the sun’s rays and reflected them as shafts of compressed
light which ignited the wealth of coarse-grained ice crystals with
which the bitter frost had sprinkled the inland ice, making its
harsh surface sparkle under the caress of the sun.

To the north there was nothing but ice to be seen, ice and still
more ice; but to the south-west the black mountains in Queen
Louise’s Land had burst through the white covering like mighty
tussocks. In the morning of Time they had been thrown up from
the glowing interior of the earth as roaring volcanoes and had
slung red hot lava high into the air and sent great clouds of smoke
swirling across the land that now was covered by a cap of ice
thousands of feet thick. To the south of us this covering of ice was
corrugated like sea frozen during a storm, and it was across those
hills and dales that, during the last fortnight, we had hauled our
heavy sledges from the sea ice, which we could still glimpse far
away in the south-east. How smooth it now looked in the distance,
but in reality it had been so uneven that we had often been on the
point of despair and wondered how we were ever to get through
its labyrinth of ice hills, pack ice and deep snow.

We could see the rash of islands and skerries in distant Dove
Bay looking like large black ships on a sea of white. It made a
lovely sight from up where wc were, but when we had been down
there among them, the islands had towered above us, making our
sledges like tiny dinghies being urged across a rigid sea by sweat¬
ing, shouting men, and the loose blowing snow like spume.

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

It was a desolate landscape, yet infinitely more alive than that
across which we were now gazing. There, three thousand feet
below and more than sixty miles away, those large black ships had
been like milestones on our way to the mighty ice cap, which we
had glimpsed between them and on which we now stood. Down
there, we had been able to see signs of living creatures, the spade¬
like footprints of bears sauntering about the ice in the hope of
sniffing out one of the seals that spend the winter snugly in snow
caves above their breathing holes. There is nothing that appeals
more to a hungry bear than the scent of seal, which sets it digging
and leads it down to where a careful old mother seal or a newborn
calf awaits it. Occasionally we saw the gory signs of such tragedies
on the white snow.

Light-footed foxes followed in the shambling tracks of the sedate
bear, living well on its leavings, both in the form of meat and what
had been meat before it had passed through the bear. And high
in the air above us ravens winged their way across the ice looking
out for the meal that the great Provider had prepared for them.

There was life all right on the ice there far below us, but up
here ...! Not a living thing, not a track or a footprint apart from
those we and our dogs had made; there was not even a bird to be
seen in the clear, quivering heavens, not a sound to be heard. The
inland ice is desolate; horribly, utterly desolate.

On this inland ice stood two small conical tents like dark toad¬
stools sprung from the white snow. Round the tents lay our dogs.
Most were enjoying the rest and the sunshine after a hard stage,
but one or two of the more enterprising were bustling about in
vain hope of finding something edible we might have forgotten
to stow away when we camped. Eagerly they sniffed the lovely
smell of food from the sledges and would gladly have filched
something, if only they could; but we were careful to see that
they had no opportunity, and it was seldom they got anything out
of their efforts other than a taste of the whip.

The dogs fought, as is the custom of dogs, especially when there
are four bitches to every dog — a sad result of the arduous trip to

GOODBYE TO SHIP AND COMRADES

Lamberts Land the previous winter which had lost us most of our
strong dogs.

In a team of normal composition it is the male dogs that fight
for the bitches’ favours, with hair flying and blood flowing, but
it was the other way round with us. Our bitches fought like furies
for the fleeting attention of the dogs, which were less enduring
even than usual, since there were other bitches humbly offering
themselves or tearing and biting at the one momentarily enjoying
a god’s favours.

This circumstance had already caused us a lot of trouble and
was to cause us plenty more. Luckily, the period of heat ought to
be over soon, and we could expect a little peace to come to our
pugnacious animals. And we hoped that they would also recover
their strength, once the violent love-making was at an end.

These and other things we spoke of, as the five of us held a
farewell party in one of the small tents up there on the inland ice.
We had come so far together, but now our ways were to part.
Laub, Bessel and Poulsen had come with us far enough, and we
only hoped that we had left them with enough provisions to get
back to our winter quarters at distant Shannon Island, and per¬
haps even to do a little exploring in that infinitude of mountain
peaks which together go by the name of Queen Louise’s Land.

Iversen and I, the other two of the five, had replenished our
provisions from the returning party’s load, so that our sledges
were carrying all the weight they could stand and a little more
than we could reasonably ask our dogs to haul. However, we
could not dispense with an ounce of what we had, so somehow
or other we would have to manage. We needed all the food we
could possibly haul along with us, as we were going first to
Danmarks Fjord and from there would try to make our way back
to the ship along the coast, a journey of a thousand miles without
counting the innumerable detours, unavoidable on such a journey,
which unfortunately were bound to add at least a couple of
hundred miles to the distance.

We drank some weak tea, greedily munched a biscuit or two

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

and glared inhospitably when one of our three guests reached out
for another. After that we demonstratively put the lid on the
biscuit box and sat on it, while we set about deciding who was to
have which dogs. We had by far the longest distance to go and had
to have most of the dogs and the best, for at a pinch the others,
who were returning to the ship, could pull the sledge themselves.
That was as it should be and both parties were agreed, both we
who were going the long way to Danmarks Fjord to search for
the notes Mylius-Erichsen might possibly have left, and the three
who relatively soon would again be enjoying all the edible delights
Alabama had to offer.

It was a Spartan, but a very pleasant little feast. When we had
divided up provisions and dogs to everyone’s satisfaction, we got
into our sleeping bags and lay there chatting: about the winter
that now was past and almost forgotten, about the violent storms
and the mighty fall of snow that had made outdoor work all but
impossible; about the difficult dark period that had slightly
cowed us all, despite the luxury of living on board, though we had
joyful memories of the few fine still days with cloudless skies,
twinkling stars, flaming northern lights, and so incredibly bright
a moon that Iver had insisted it must be a hallucination, for no
such moon existed. On those moonlit days it had been our joy to
harness the dogs to an empty sledge and race across the ice on
a hunt for bear or one of the musk oxen, which lived such a
grim life in that snow-clad land that we told ourselves it must be
easier for them to die than continue their search for food where
no food was to be found. We spoke of the joy and the solemnity of
that bitterly cold day in the middle of February, when the sun
had come back to us after its three and a half months visit to the
southern hemisphere. And we teased Iversen good-humouredly
because, in a flush of enthusiasm at seeing the first sunbeam of
the year kindle flashing glints in all the infinite numbers of ice
crystals on ship and land, he had rushed about shouting: ‘Come
and see, the sun is back, the sun is back,’ his voice ringing far out
over the land.

44

GOODBYE TO SHIP AND COMRADES

Had he doubted that it would? Perhaps it would not be strange
if he hadj for you can scarcely take in the wonder of it, when the
sun does at last return after being below the horizon for close on
four months. You miss it dreadfully, as you miss its most faithful
companion, shadow; you feel so strangely naked, so alone without
your shadow. But the sun had come back and our shadows with
it; black and so infinitely long that they almost seemed to reach
the horizon in the north. We had run up on to the crest of the
ridge to keep the sun in view as long as possible, and had stared
southwards straight at its orange-coloured disc as it rolled along
the horizon in a blaze of colours, so violent and so inharmonious
in their fervour, as if it were a blaze kindled by demons wanting
to bum the earth to cinders. Yet at the same time, high up in the
zenith, the sky was of a dull blue colour, and in the north so black
and grim that we had shivered at the sight of it.

For a few minutes the sun had delighted us, then it had dis¬
appeared again below the horizon. As it went, it was as though
our shadows had run off towards the north and vanished or been
obliterated. But the next day the sun had returned and brought
light, colour and shadows, and life was good to live. And then the
time for our long sledge journey was at hand.

We spoke, too, of the two others left at the ship, of Jorgensen
who should have been with us on the inland ice, only his feet
had been so badly frost-bitten on our way back from Lamberts
Land that we had to amputate five toes — without a doctor,
without antiseptics, without any better anaesthetic than half a
bottle of whisky, a job none of us could think of without shudder¬
ing. Jorgensen had taken it like a man, and never once had we
heard him complain about being thus debarred from taking part
in the long sledge journeys we were to make in the spring. What
he thought, we did not know, but he joked and laughed with us
when there was anything to be amused at, and helped us in what¬
ever way he could from his bunk. He was a man indeed, that
Jorgensen, we were all agreed about that, and as we lay in our
sleeping bags we elaborated the point in our attempts to find

45

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

something to talk about and so be together a little while longer.

And there was that willing horse Unger, who undertook all the
jobs no one else wanted to do. He so badly wanted to do the right
thing, but as he did not know what was done and what was not
done on board a ship, he often did the wrong thing. Now, as we
were about to sever the last tie with the ship and our companions,
we longingly thought of the wonderful dinner he had made for us
the last evening on board, and how he must have worked all
night to have produced the magnificent breakfast he served us
before we set out. When we had finished it and gulped down a
mug of his scalding coffee, we went out on to the ice and to the
sledges to which the dogs had long been harnessed, disentangled
the traces and set out on our way, but not without thanking
Unger, the good companion, for the help he had always given so
willingly, and for all the good meals he had made us at a time
when meals were the only bright spots in our day.

It was not very easy to say goodbye to each other in that desola¬
tion of ice. Under what conditions would we meet again? The
future was utterly uncertain, for so much could happen both to
them and to us. Thus, we put off the moment as long as possible,
sipping our hot tea and racking our brains for something else to
say.

We were all of us a little uneasy, and when the position of the
sun in the sky showed that we had procrastinated a little too long
already, we said ‘good-bye and thanks for everything’ and went
our separate ways.

Our three companions headed south and soon disappeared
among the hummocks on the uneven inland ice, leaving Iversen
and me alone on that great white waste. Whatever happened
now, we must rely solely on ourselves and what we carried on
our sledges.

When our day’s work was finished and we were preparing to
creep into our sleeping bags, I found under mine the exact number
of biscuits and amount of butter that we had sacrificed on the
farewell feast. ‘Sacrificed’ is not too big a word, for under such

46

GOODBYE TO SHIP AND COMRADES

conditions biscuits were infinitely precious, and butter too. On
the biscuits lay a piece of paper on which was written: ‘You two
need this more than we three. Good journey and safe return.
Laub, Bessel and Poulsen.’

Iversen and I sat and looked at the piece of paper, at the
biscuits — I think there were six — and at the butter, and at each
other. The gift was like a last handclasp from our faithful,
considerate friends.

47

CHAPTER V

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

Crevasses in the inland ice — A lure for the dogs — Unsafe surface —
Storm, and drifting snow — Frost-bite — Stormy days

Iversen and I stood on a hummock of ice and watched our
companions till they were out of sight. Soon they had disappeared
down a valley of ice and when, after waiting, we did not see them
reappear on the next ridge, we realized that they had found a
practicable way behind it and had been engulfed in that great ice
sea. Then we nodded to each other, and, without saying much,
quietly got on with the job of reloading our sledges, dividing our
gear and provisions between them in such a way, that if we lost a
sledge in one of the many crevasses with which we were per¬
petually surrounded, and whose black mouths led to an under¬
world whence escape was impossible, we would have at least a
theoretical chance of managing for a while with what remained
on the other sledge.

Knowing what had to be done, there was little need for words
and so we said less and less and in the end fell silent. Neither of us
liked the silence, though, especially Iver, and after one lengthy
pause I heard him muttering some words to himself over and over
again. Finally he found the tune, and that was as peculiar as the
words:

‘Alone, alone, quite alone between Heaven and earth,

Alone with dogs and ice, alone, quite alone.’

Louder and louder grew his mumble, till finally he burst into
song. He glanced sideways at me, and I nodded in time to his
improvised ditty, that sounded so melancholy and yet was so
heartening in that great deathly silent waste.

He was a good comrade, Iver; the sort of man with whom you
could go on a really long journey, such as that on which we were
starting, for we had a thousand miles ahead of us, every foot of

48

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

which we must cover before we got back to Alabama . By that time
the grip of winter would be broken and summer have come; each
mountain side would be agush with streams, each hollow a gleam¬
ing mirror of water with migrant birds from the fair South
disporting themselves on it.

First we had to cover the 270 miles across the inland ice to
Danmarks Fjord, and that would be the hardest leg of the journey.
The immense ice cap extended far and wide all round us,
thousands of feet thick and nearly five thousand where we
were. To the west stretched line after line of ice hills up to Green¬
land’s spine, where the mass of ice reached a thickness of close on
ten thousand feet. From north to south this armour of ice is some
2300 miles long, and from east to west nearly 500 miles wide on
the average — nearly one and a quarter million square miles, two
and a half million cubic miles of ice! This inconceivable mass of
ice has accumulated through the ages on a country that once, in
the morning of Time, was covered with luxuriant tropical vegeta¬
tion.

The two of us* then, were alone on all that ice — apart from
our three companions who had disappeared beyond the ice
horizon a few hours before. We were as cut off from the world’s
seething mass of humanity, as if in some miraculous way we had
been flung out into space and had landed in the largest crater on
the moon, surrounded by an unbroken ring-wall of inconceivably
high mountains across which no way led to the equally desolate
territory beyond.

It was in truth a dismal place to find yourself in, no place for a
man to be.

But what was the matter with us ? Why were we complaining
now that at last we had got where we had so long hankered to be ?
We had no reason to be disgruntled, quite the reverse. We had
come there voluntarily, although perhaps rashly; we had even
looked forward to getting up on to die great ice cap which we
regarded as a more or less practicable road to our goal.

Nevertheless, we were slightly bewildered at finding ourselves

49

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

alone up there on that boundless waste, where never a bird
winged its way between sky and ice, where the scanning eye could
not discover even the smallest track of roaming animal, where
there were no other insects than the fleas our dogs carried in their
thick hair, if even they had not been frozen to death. Even a
miserable worm was too sensible to go where we had ventured of
our own free will.

It was a dangerous wilderness, in that so many things both
unforseen and unavoidable, might happen, things which would
mean death to us both and to the dogs and the fleas that perhaps
still bred on them, sucking the blood of their weakened hosts.
These might be quite minor things, a sprained ankle for example,
that anywhere else would be worth no more than a regretful
shrug of the shoulders. Elsewhere in the world of man a sprain was
an easy thing to cure, but here it was a mortal hurt, not only for
the one who suffered the injury, but also for his companion who
would have to wait till the other had recovered and could put his
weight on that foot before he could continue. There was nothing
we could do, if one of us met with the least accident; there was
no help to be had, however badly we needed it, no refuge to be
found: either we both got through, or we both died and became
as stiff and frozen as everything else around us.

Those were things you must not think too much about; thinking
did not help and only tended to destroy your peace of mind. There
we were on the inland ice, two rash humans who had gone there
voluntarily, and what we had to do was to get down again as
quickly as we could — on the other side. Nor had we any time to
waste, so we harnessed the dogs to the sledges, took a last look at
the site of our camp to make doubly sure that nothing had been
forgotten, cracked our long whips at the dogs, hitting them where
they felt it most, and flung ourselves into the traces to get the
sledges going and so that the dogs should understand that the time
for idling was over, and that now it was a question of pulling and
pulling hard. So, with a great commotion of howls and cries that
was good to hear in that eerie silence, we laboriously got under

50

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

way, taking the first of our lonely steps towards the land round
the first arm of Danmarks Fjord, 270 miles away. We hoped that
when we had got there, we should find not too breakneck a way
down the tall steep wall of ice, probably more than three hundred
feet high, which bounded the ice cap in the north, and so escape
from that hell of ice, cold and paralysing stillness.

We had long since acquired due respect for the many crevasses
and fissures that gaped dangerously all round us. Some were
narrow, others several yards wide, anything up to a hundred feet
or more. Often they were hidden beneath a covering of hard
wind-pressed snow, so that we never saw them, but merely felt
them as the middle of the snow bridge gave slightly; or there
might be a sudden, eerie, hollow sound as you thrust your feet in
hard to keep the sledge going and happened to be over such a
chasm.

Mostly the snow bridges held, but it did happen and not so
seldom, that one broke beneath our weight or that of the sledge,
and for minutes, sometimes scores of minutes, it was touch and go
whether or not we got across with the dogs, sledges, gear and
ourselves safe and sound.

We were lucky, and each time a snow bridge broke, there was
always some insignificant little protruberance in the steep, often
vertical lip of glass-hard ice that stopped the slipping sledge from
falling into unfathomable depths, so that we were able, with
infinite caution, to remove its precious load and carry it to safe ice,
then draw the sledge to safety from the crevasse that was blue-
white and gleaming up by the surface, but black, black as the
grave some few yards down towards its icy depths. Once, however,
a trace broke and a wretched dog fell in. It fell and fell and fell.
We never heard it strike bottom, never heard so much as a
whimper from the poor brute, which perhaps fell so far that no
sound could reach up to the surface where Iver and I stood looking
at each other, aghast at the thought that either of us, or both,
might just as easily have been sent hurtling into those depths,
through the glassy jaws of ice down into the blue-blackness.

5*

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

One day when we thought We were relatively safe from crevasses,
for fortunately there were such days as well, I heard Iver call out
suddenly-1 did not catch what he said, but the fright and horror
in his voice were all too obvious. I spun round to see what had
happened and saw Iver lying flat on the ice beside a black hole in
the snow calling: ‘Puppy, Puppy, don’t you hear me?’

In a couple of bounds I reached the hole from which the
searing breath of the ice struck at our faces. Iver gave me a
horrified look and said:

‘Puppy’s trace broke, he’s down there,’ and he nodded down
towards the black depths. ‘I didn’t hear him strike on the side or
bottom, so perhaps he hasn’t even reached it yet. When we stopped
for a rest a while ago, he crawled up on to the sledge, snuggled
into me and gazed at me with his faithful eyes.’

A bead of ice rolled down Iver’s cheek into his beard, where it
froze fast; another followed, then another, a whole lot; but five
minutes later we were on our way north again, heading for other
crevasses, broad or narrow as fate decreed, easy to cross or only
to be negotiated after a long search for a snow bridge to which we
dared entrust our Weight.

There were days when our feet went through the fragile bridges
however careful we were, however cautiously we tested their
strength before venturing out on to them; and there were other
days when it felt as though a kindly fate were guiding our steps,
and we became more and more reckless, crossing snow bridges
without first testing them and smiling superior smiles when we
heard the ominous, hollow sound beneath our feet, though we
would be careful to step but lightly on the snow and swing our
whips furiously over the dogs, for the sledges had to be kept
moving. To halt meant falling, and death.

I always kept a small lump of pemmican handy, and this I
produced whenever we had to cross a specially unpleasant snow
bridge, one that sagged in the middle and yet seemed safe enough,
if only we could keep the sledges moving. The dogs were shown it
and allowed to snuff in the delicious smell of it. They would howl

58

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

and bark in their eagerness to get so rare a titbit, leap forward in
the traces to get going and when they were all strained to the
utmost, to their annoyance they would see the desired pemmican
slung far ahead of them to the other side of the chasm. Now, it was
a case of who could get there first; and with tails waving in the
joys of anticipation, tongues hanging far out, and flanks going like
bellows, the dogs would pull like creatures possessed in the hope
of being the first to reach the titbit on the other side, the titbit
they never got. They never got it, because I was always first across
the bridge and kicked the lump of pemmican far out of their
reach; then I picked it up to use it again in the next emergency,
while the dogs flew at each other, biting and yelping, each believ¬
ing that the other had had the luck to snap up what was safely
back in my pocket. I used the same lump throughout the whole
journey across that waste of ice.

It was swindling, if you like, and a shame on the trusting dogs
who never suspected that we humans could be so mean, but I had
to be mean, in order to get them and the sledge across those
especially dangerous places.

We came across long stretches where the surface ice was
splintered like a piece of glass that has been struck by a ricocheting
bullet, riven by long narrow crevasses, not broad enough to fall
down and perhaps not dangerous to us or the dogs and sledges, yet
most unpleasant to tread in, for, if your luck were out, you could
break your leg on the sharp edge of the ice, or sprain an ankle.
That was a thing of which we were very afraid, as the chances of
it happening were considerable, but we just had to disregard them.
If we worried about everything that could have happened to us
we might just as well have stayed at home in Copenhagen. We
toiled on across the splintered ice, treading into fissures with one
leg or perhaps with both, but getting up and out again before we
had time to realize what had happened, and just flinging the
word ‘fissure’ over our shoulders to our companion following with
his sledge a short way behind.

Of course, I always went in the lead, as was only right, and one

53

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

day when we were crossing a part where there were unusually
many of these narrow crevasses, I heard Iversen start chuckling
away to himself. I turned in amazement and some irritation to see
what could be the cause of all this merriment, for which I could
see no occasion at all. ‘What are you laughing at?’ I asked.

‘What? 1 Iversen replied and laughed aloud. ‘Because you
remind me of a toy I had as a child and used to love, a Jack-in-
the-box, I think it was called. Anyway, you’re exactly like the
Jack who shot out of the box every time I eased the lid. You are
just as black as he was; your hair is long and tufted like his, and
sticks out in the same way. And you flap your arms, just as he did
as he popped out of the box. You’re down one moment, so that I
can scarcely see you, and up the next. In fact, you look fearfully
funny.’

It was all very well to talk of Jack-in-the-boxes and laugh at
me, but it was my shins I was cutting on the sharp ice, and I would
be the one whom fate perhaps would thrust down into some box,
so that I stayed there. I certainly could see nothing to laugh at.

Up there on the inland ice, when the days were golden with
sunlight and the frost so hard that the mercury had frozen in the
thermometer, and the paraffin become so thick that it had to be
thawed a bit in the warmth of our sleeping bags, before we could
get it to bum in the Primus or even flow out of the can, there often
happened something that was really lovely. All at once we would
hear a faint rustling all round us, like the frou-frou of heavy silk,
and at that moment every one of the infinite number of snow and
ice crystals on the surface suddenly shone and gleamed most
colourfully, as though each had been a sparkling diamond. It
looked lovely and for an instant created an illusion of life around
us; but it also got on our nerves and made us start each time it
happened and think for a moment that we had come unawares
onto a fragile snow bridge, which just then was breaking beneath
us. The dogs were as nervy as we were and leaped on stiff legs as
high as the traces let them, barked, howled and whined with fear.

In the end, however, we discovered why the dead white surface

54

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

of the inland ice could become so lovely: it was due to the hard-
frozen crust of snow breaking beneath the weight of the sledge
and sinking a centimeter or so into the softer snow beneath.
Knowing that, our fright was only momentary, and the next
moment we were swinging our whips over the terrified dogs and
shouting ourselves hoarse: ‘Silly brutes. There’s no danger of
crevasses here. Pull, pull, damn you!’

All of us who had gone up there were silly, both men and dogs.

We were sitting on our sledges in a dip full of crevasses, having
a breather after an especially hard stage, when Iver asked one of
his innumerable questions: ‘Tell me, what makes the crevasses?
Why are there many in one place and none in another?’

Iver pondered problems as he trudged along by the side of his
sledge, pulling as much as all his dogs together. His was an alert
mind, and he saw and noted a great deal. Everything was new to
him, who previously had spent his days in a workshop or a ship’s
engine room. He wanted to know about everything that interested
him in the cold white hell up there; and when the labour of
forcing the sledge along was not enough to shut his mouth, he
asked questions intenninably, thinking that I had ready answers
for all that could happen on the ice, that I knew everything about
crevasses, dogs, sledging, weather and all the other things that
can interest those who travel by sledge. It was flattering, as long
as I could think of a plausible answer, but excessively irritating
when I was tired or could not supply an answer that perhaps I
should have known. Usually such bouts of questioning ended with
a gruff: ‘Oh, shut up, Iver. Save your breath for pulling to help
the dogs.’

Then the good Iver would sulk for a bit and look as though he
would never open his mouth again. But all resentment vanished as
soon as the crevasses were again gaping at us from all sides with
their blue-black jaws. They were both dangerous and a waste of .
time, yet one way or 'another we were always able to make our
way through those labyrinths of cracks and fissures, large and
small; but progress was slow, often all too slow for us, who saw

55

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

our provisions sinking day by day without our being able to cover
the necessary distance. At some stage or other of our journey we
were going to have to pay for all the time lost because of the
crevasses.

Unpleasant and time-consuming as the crevasses were, our
worst enemy on the inland ice was nevertheless the searing,
biting wind. It almost always blew in our faces, driving snow in
front of it in dense clouds. The granules of snow stung us like
swarms of impertinent insects, until incipient frost-bite made
noses, cheeks, ears and fingers insensitive to their attack. Then
we had to remove our warm mittens and use our hands to thaw
out our faces, rubbing them with snow so sharp and hard-frozen
that it acted like sand-paper and rubbed holes in our insensitive
skin. The snow melted in our bare hands, so that icy water ran
over our fingers that Were themselves already threatened, and
quickly they too became white, insensitive and dead, and had to
be rubbed in their turn, till the blood tingled and the pain became
all but unbearable. That melted more snow, sent more water
running over our hands to freeze and cake on the fur where our
sleeves closely encircled our wrists. It was a vicious circle and
very difficult to escape from.

We had always to be on the look out for signs of frost-bite in
each other’s faces, the waxen-yellow patch that spreads so swiftly,
if it is not halted in time. As a rule frost-bite is not immediately
noticed by the one affected, and thus, when the weather was so
cold that frost-bite was likely as was almost always the case on the
inland ice, we had to keep a sharp watch on each other. As soon
as I saw a dead white patch on Iver’s face, I gave warning: Tver,
thaw your nose, it’s frozen.’ Often the reply when he looked up
and saw my face, was a curt: ‘Yours too.’ So then we had to halt
and rub till the blood was circulating again and ears or nose had
begun to tingle and burn, instead of being dead and insensitive.

Swirling snow, borne along by the howling wind, swept the
loose snow off the inland ice and pelted us with it, till it filled our
beards and caked there, pressing up towards our noses so that we

56

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

had to scratch it away. Eyebrows and eyelashes became hung with
garlands of tiny icicles, which we were continually having to rub
away in order to see at all. The driving snow found every hole,
every opening however small, in our warm skins and caked on our
shirts and underclothes; there the heat of our bodies melted it, so
that it dripped and ran where water should not be, where it
would have been unpleasant in any circumstances, but in ours
was insufferable.

We had a bad time of it on the inland ice, but our poor dogs
were even worse off, for they suffered from the low driving snow
much more than we. Often we were able to stride along against a
hard wind with the upper part of our bodies in lovely sunshine, so
that we looked out across a billowing sea of wind-borne snow in
which our dogs were submerged. Under such conditions it was
almost impossible to keep going.

But we had to get forward, and forward we got, though only
slowly, for nothing takes the stuffing out of dogs like driving snow.
We had to keep urging the wretched animals on, in. order to get
the most out of an impossible day. And we were loath to use our
whips, perhaps not so much out of consideration for the dogs, as
for ourselves, for the wind often flung the long lash back at us; and
it had a strange propensity to catch us in the face, just where
there was no fur or beard to protect the skin, and its sharp frozen
edge drew blood. The dog whip is a double-edged weapon that
castigates dogs and men indiscriminately. Thus, if there was a
head wind, we urged on the dogs with cries and shouts and curses,
but we might just as well have saved our breath, as they had no
effect at all without an accompanying crack of the whip. It was
no wonder, either, that the dogs struck and neither could nor
would work when the wind was against them; for their panting
breath melted the snow driving round their heads, so that it
settled in lumps of ice on their poor faces, freezing to the hair,
especially round their eyes, so that they could not see.

We were continually having to clear the ice and snow off the
leader-dogs’ eyes, for if they could not see where they were tread-

57

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

ing, the whole team must halt. The other dogs could stumble
blindly across the ice; theirs was just to haul and pull; they needed
only to follow the leader-dog, who anyway would see to it that
they did. Each time we halted for a breather or to gather strength
for the next tussle or to clean the dogs’ eyes or whatever else the
reason, the dogs would creep behind the sledges to get out of the
searing wind and the stabbing snow. That always caused a
commotion: the dogs bit and tore at each other to get the best
places close to the shelter of the sledge, and within a few minutes
the traces would be tangled and, glassy with frozen saliva and
urine, turned into a hard, frozen mass of knots, almost impossible
to disentangle. So, before we could get going again, that tangle
had to be thawed and undone, sometimes using our teeth, but
always our bare hands, which became white and stiff — frost-bite
again.

It was a bitter business sledging into a stiff wind and driving
snow, but it had to be blowing very hard before we gave up and
stopped and made camp. When we halted, the dogs could rest at
once, digging holes for themselves and letting their bitter enemy,
the wind, cover them with a warm coverlet of snow. Then they
were relatively comfortable, but we had a horrible time getting
the tent pitched in the furious gusts that almost always heralded
a storm. All loose objects, especially anything edible, had to be
taken into the tent, and often we had several hours drudgery in
biting cold and furious wind, before we ourselves could crawl into
the relative warmth and shelter of the tent. But before we could
relax, we must quickly restore the circulation to those places on
face, hands and perhaps toes as well, where frost-bite had started.

The days when the wind came storming off the inland ice and
forced us to take shelter were indeed hard for both us and the
dogs. It would be a long time even after We had got inside the
tent, before we got sufficient warmth into our bodies, especially
our fingers, to be able to handle the Primus. How lovely that
Primus was when it was burning with a warm, blue-yellow flame,
but how searingly cold before it was lit, when to touch it with

58

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

bare fingers was like grasping red hot iron.

Everything was accomplished in time, however; then, the dogs
fed, the tent in order and the reindeer hair linings of our sleeping
bags more or less thawed, we would ease ourselves into them and
stretch our stiff limbs, enjoy our pemmican and the rest, and then
fall asleep in the hope that perhaps the weather would be good in
the morning.

Hope we always had, though it was mostly deceived, and
angrily we would creep deeper into the clammy warmth of our
sleeping bags, when we woke to another day and heard the wind
whistling, howling and roaring round us, heard the smacks as
heavy lumps of frozen snow struck the walls of the tent that
sagged beneath the weight of the snow and the press of the wind,
so that the little shelter we had made against storm and snow
was even smaller than before.

It would not have been so miserable if we could have stayed in
our sleeping bags and ‘enjoyed* Ufe; but however bad the weather
was, we had to go out. In the first place we had to take a look at
the weather and see if there were any signs of improvement and
any likelihood of our being able to sledge on, which was regrettably
seldom the case. The dogs also had to be seen to; each had to be
hounded, wildly protesting, from its warm den, to prevent it
being suffocated by the thickening layer of snow; and also they
had to be fed. They were not given much, for days of compulsory
rest were wasted as far as distance was concerned, and we could
not afford to give the dogs more than would just relieve the worst
of their hunger. Food was precious and had to be eked out most
carefully.

The same strict rule applied, of course, to us in the tent, and on
lay days hunger gnawed at the stomachs of both men and dogs.
Abstinence, voluntary or compulsory, was required, if we were to
be able to complete our long journey; yet on the other hand .
neither dogs nor men could be allowed to go so hungry that it
weakened them. It was not easy to decide how much was neces¬
sary, especially when you yourself were ravening.

59

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

One idle day was not so unwelcome, for there was always a lot
of mending of skins and footgear to be done. And then there was
the journal to be written up on paper so cold that your breath
turned to ice as it touched the relatively white sheet, which it
inevitably brushed. We had to watch out for this, for once or
twice we had discovered to our annoyance that the account of
the previous day’s happenings, which we had written so labor¬
iously with cold, stiff fingers, had been written on nothing more
permanent than a thin film of ice, which melted if the temperature
in the tent rose slightly, or if we stroked a relatively warm hand
across the paper. And with the film of ice the writing also vanished,
and it was all to be done again, after first drying and wanning
the paper.

We spent much time measuring distances on the map and
putting dots where we were, and in comparing our progress with
the timetable I had worked out in my warm cabin in Alabama: to
which we had to keep if our food were to last. We dared not rely
on finding game where the three who had perished had found
none.

The result of the balance we struck was not very encouraging,
and we realized, while we were still on the inland ice, that the
day must come when we would find ourselves without provisions
on the desolate coast far north of our winter quarters, which we
would then not be able to reach unless we could find game. And
the thought of game, the word game, was so inspiring, that we
could never quite rid ourselves of the hope of encountering some¬
thing to shoot. We talked about it endlessly, tliis question which
might be one of life or death, trying to see it from every side —
and there was plenty of time to do so during the long days when
the weather was stormy. And we always came to the comforting
conclusion that of course we could not help finding game once we
got to proper land and the coast, that there we must come across
animals as we sledged along. We revelled in thinking and talking
of all the meat we were going to have, looked forward to it and
drove the warning voice of doubt from our minds; we talked of

60

ALONE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

the musk-oxen we could not help hitting, of the bears our bullets
would kill, and of the seals we should find dozing in the sunshine
or on an icefloe, secure in the consciousness that no danger could
threaten them.

These were encouraging thoughts and often they had to take
the place of a meal, which they could do — for a time at least. So
while the storm howled round the tent and the snow swirled
madly, we talked gaily of how the dogs would enjoy it, when at
last they were able once more to gorge on all the juicy meat there
would be lying about at the end of a successful hunt on the ice.

CHAPTER VI

STILL ON THE INLAND ICE

Talking of dogs — Worries about provisions — Melancholy prospects

Many hours of the gloomy tedious lay days of enforced idleness
were spent in talk of our dogs. They were always in our thoughts
and one or more nearly always in view, for my leader-dog, Girly,
who was staid and more or less house-trained, was usually in our
tent and often lying on top of our sleeping bags, where she acted
as a live hot-water bottle and helped to warm our feet.

Girly loved being with us. She lay quietly in the little tent
following our every movement with her lovely faithful eyes, giving
a little happy squeak at each kind word we gave her, and whining
with delight when she was given a microscopic piece of our food.
Girly was a handsome dog. She was a great help on the laborious
days of sledging, and as a tent fellow she helped to cheer us up
during the irksome tedium of the lay days.

Iver hated it that my leader-dog had a permanent place in the
tent, while his leader-dog, Bjorn, which he thought every bit as
good, had to suffer the hardships of living outside. Bjorn was of
the same opinion and squeezed as close as he could to the wall of
the tent, so as to share in what took place on the other side of the
thin cloth. He gave a squeak when he heard Girly squeak, whined
when he heard her joyful bark at being given some tiny titbit.
And each time there was this chorusing on either side of the tent
wall, Iver would look at me reproachfully: ‘Did you hear that?
It really did sound as though that good Bjorn was glad of Girly’s
living in luxury here with us. Shouldn’t we ... ?’ And he would
look at me interrogatively, and I would nod agreement.

The next moment Iver would be out of his sleeping bag and of
course he could not avoid touching the tent cloth. That sent the
hoar frost sprinkling down over us, into our hair and beards,
trickling down our necks and reaching far down chest and back

6a

STILL ON THE INLAND ICE

before it melted, falling thick on the sleeping bags and turning
into icy water. But Iver never thought of that, nor of the storm
of snow that swept in when he opened the door of the tent: ‘Come
along, Bjorn, but you must behave, 5 he added hesitantly, ‘or the
boss will be angry. 5

Bjorn did not need to be invited twice; he came in like an
avalanche. Bjorn was a big dog. His fur and tail were full of
snow and he expressed his boundless joy at being let in by violent,
ingratiating wrigglings of his body that sent the snow swirling
round the tent. He was an awkward friend to invite in. But Iver
was happy and tried to mitigate the violence of Bjorn’s delight;
Bjorn and Girly were happy too, and, of course, tried to romp.
As a rule Iver would have a tiny piece of pemmican that he had
been keeping for his pet, who would whine with joy when he got
it, while Girly came to me for comfort and solace. Then all would
be cosy until the exuberant Bjorn, in his attempts at self-efface¬
ment, knocked the Primus over with his large bushy tail. That
frightened him, and he tried to make amends by backing away
from the disgusting cold thing, and in doing so stepped into our
jug and knocked that over, then peed with fright at the damage
he had done and at what he knew would be the inevitable result:
expulsion from paradise into the cold and swirling snow-storm.
And while Iver busied himself restoring order, he comforted him¬
self by assuring me that one day Bjorn would learn how to behave
in the tent, so that he could always be inside with us.

But Bjorn never did. Neither he nor Iver learned from expe¬
rience, and every time we had Bjorn in the tent the unexpected
always happened.

Even with half rations for men and dogs these days of enforced
rest cost us some thirty pounds a day, which was a dreadful tax
on our store of provisions when there was no mileage covered to
counterbalance it. When we had nothing else to do in the tent,
we reviewed our various dogs’ capabilities so as to decide which
did least for its food, and thus ought to be killed so that the others
could live. Unfortunately, there were few of whom we could find

63

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

anything good to say, and while the storm howled round us, we
spent hours deciding which dog we could best do without, which
shirked its work most and really should long since have paid
with its life for its lack of interest in what is the sledge-dog’s only
justification: to haul, haul and go on hauling till it can haul no
more.

As a rule, a good storm on the inland ice lasted a couple of
days and nights, though one went on for five. When the weather
forced us to lie idle for particularly long, the sentence of death we
had passed would be carried out. Both of us would go out into
the storm. The dogs Would whine expectandy; and the wily
Grimrian would literally tread on my heels in his efforts not to be
seen, apparently knowing what it meant when I had a rifle in my
hand. Then we would dig the condemned dog out of its warm
snow-lair, press the muzzle of the rifle to its head, and it would
die as the report rang out, without a gasp or a kick.

The report always set all the dogs howling in a lengthy concert,
for they knew that now they were going to get warm meat to eat.
Then, while the frost bit at our faces and fingers, we would skin
the dead dog, cut it,up and give each live dog its share, which was
litde enough, for up there on the inland ice the dogs had grown
so wretchedly thin that there was little on them; yet it was enough
to keep the survivors going for another day or two of storm without
suffering too greatly from hunger.

We always took two pieces of the best meat back to the tent
for Girly and Bjorn, so that they could feast on the remains of a
companion who had been weighed and found wanting.

Bjorn always gobbled up his bit with delighted grunts and much
smacking of his lips, but Girly would just smell hers, turn it over
and smell the other side, take a cautious trial nibble at it — and
then turn away from it and give me a most expressive look. If
she had been able to talk, she would undoubtedly have said in a
tone of reproach: ‘So all my hard work is rewarded with a piece
of nauseous meat from a companion. How can you!’ That was
all very well, but what else could I do?

64

STILL ON THE INLAND ICE

Bjorn would be keeping an eye on Girly, and when he saw that
she was leaving the meat, he would approach cautiously; but
Girly would not even protest when, warily and with his had
conscience showing in his eyes, he patted the lump to him with
a paw and swallowed it in a couple of gulps. Bjorn did not possess
the finer feelings and was not one to despise any food.

Iver and I would look at each other, always rather guiltily.
Once I patted Girly, petting her a bit because she was a good dog
who refused to eat a comrade; and, though I did not say anything,
I may have smiled a little exultingly at Iver. Anyway, he took it
as a tacit condemnation of Bjorn, who had not such fine feelings,
and suddenly squeezing out of his warm damp sleeping bag, he
opened the door of the tent and thrust the yelping Bjorn into the
raging storm and cold snow, without Bjorn having any idea what
he had done: ‘Damned cannibal,’ Iver shouted at him. ‘Enjoy
yourself there!’

Then Girly was given a microscopic piece of an almost invisible
bit of pemmican as a reward for virtue.

Those days of storm were long and difficult to get through. We
spent forty-nine days on the inland ice and of these we were
stormbound for nineteen whole days, and various half days. That
was a fearful lot.

That did not exhaust the devilry of the weather, for calm fine
days were so rare there that we had eighteen days (other than
stormbound ones) of slow, laborious battling against a more or
less violent wind, before we had our first good day.

I must admit that we were making our journey too early. In
the summer, or early summer, the weather is much better; or so
one is led to believe. I had always known that we were starting
out too early, but I had no choice: either we had to cross the
inland ice as early as we possibly could, or we must be prepared
to spend the summer somewhere or other on the coast, which
would involve another wintering, and for that we had no great
desire.

I had chosen to sledge early across the inland ice in the hope

65

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

that the powers which govern wind and weather would be
gracious. They were, in fact, the reverse, so that, though we had
chosen almost the worst time for the inland ice, where storm was
the rule, we still had to be prepared to spend the summer some¬
where on the coast. And if our rifles could not get us food there,
what then? There would be no more ‘and then?’ Mylius-
Erichsen and his companions had not survived, though one of
them w'as a Greenlander, accustomed to keeping alive in that
harsh land.

We had had a hard time of it with the dirty weather and, in all
probability, would have just as bad a time with hunger during
the summer. Which of the two would be worse, was a matter of
opinion; both situations were grim and could cost us our lives.
Now we had come through the storms: would we do as much
with the hunger?

We had every excuse to consider the outlook dark. The provi¬
sions we carried had been too few for the consumption necessitated
by the days of storm and no progress, and it was obvious long
before we came down off the inland ice that we must make up
our minds to spend the summer there, as it was only in the
autumn we could hope to get back to Alabama. Those nineteen
days of storm would cost us a whole year, at least a year — if we
even came through the summer.

CHAPTER vrr

LAST DAYS ON THE INLAND ICE

Ice and cold improve — Land straight ahead — The dogs break into the
tent — Run-away ride — A fairy world — Back on land

Luckily, it could also happen that when we woke, we would sit
up in surprise in our sleeping bags, listening for the sound we were
accustomed to hear, listening intently without catching the least
hiss of snow against the tent; and if, at the same time, the sun
happened to be shining through the tent-cloth, filling with golden
sunlight the little space the storms made so dreary, then we would
be out of our sleeping bags in a flash and, while one made tea,
the other hurried out on to the gaily lit inland ice, joyfully
sniffed the fresh air, shuddered a little with the cold and set about
getting all ready for the earliest possible start.

That could be a cold job when the temperature was so low that
the mercury was frozen, and it became an even colder one when
one day I remembered how, in Alaska, the Eskimoes often ice
the runners of their sledges when they want to drive quickly
across snow that is free from stones. That was a tiring we also
should be able to do, and there was certainly no need to be afraid
of stones ripping the ice off the runners, when we were on top of
a layer of ice nearly 5,000 feet thick! So we tried icing our runners,
and the experiment was a magnificent success — the sledges slid
along almost on their own.

The dogs were highly surprised when we moved off and they
found that they could scarcely feel the weight of the sledges. They
barked loudly in amazement and turned round to see whether
they had lost the sledge, or why they could no longer feel it. Then
they saw our smiling faces and heard our words of encouragement
‘Keep going, little dogs. The sledges are there and will follow
you all right.’

And so they dashed ahead. Iver and I smiled to each other. It
c 67

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

was almost incredible how easily everything went. The sun was
shining, there was no wind to hamper us and we were maintaining
a relatively good speed — praise be! There was, though, one
nasty snake in our paradise: icing sledge runners in a temperature
of thirty or forty degrees (Centigrade) below zero, perhaps even
fifty, was a job for experts. We had filled our mouths with water
to warm it slightly, then spat it out onto the runners and rubbed
it with our bare hands along the wood, laying layer upon layer
until the skin of ice was almost a millimetre thick. That was a
cold job for bare fingers, and when at last we were done we
discovered that our hands had been so numb, that we had never
even noticed the big splinters of wood we had rammed into our
palms.

We did not worry much about that, though. We could always
pull the splinters out when the frost had gone from our hands. All
that we were concerned with was to get the sledges gliding easily,
so as to save the dogs’ strength and cover as great a distance as
possible, and thus make up some oi the time we had lost.

The sledges did at least slip along easily on their iced runners,
and once we had got so far north that the inland ice began to
shelve down towards the land round Danmarks Fjord, sledging
became a real joy instead of the inhuman toil it had been.

It was nearly May and the sun was high in the sky both at
midnight and at noon. The worst of the crevasses and fissures
were evidently behind us, for we saw but few of them, and a large
mass of mountains was heaving itself up above the horizon far
away in the north, more mountains to take the place of those we
had struggled so hard to reach and pass.

The weather, too, had improved. There were not so many
storms, and they neither so violent nor of such long duration as
they had been. Obviously, we had the worst behind us. So, as we
sped across the waste of ice, we urged the dogs on with fair
promises of land and musk oxen, of such gorging as their bellies
had never known before.

We called gay flippancies across to each other, as we strode

LAST DAYS ON THE INLAND ICE

along with sail on the sledge, for now we had a following wind
instead of the interminable head wind that had blown till then.
The tent, hoist on a mast of three skis lashed together, made a
peculiar looking sail, but it served its purpose, increased our speed
and enhanced our joy at the progress we were making. And, as
usual, when things weren’t going at all right with us, Iver sang
most loudly; thus, across the inland ice, rang the comforting
refrain: ‘Why should we sorrow,

Why let things annoy?

The world’s not worth it
’Twas made for joy.’

We certainly had no cause for tears. Fate had given us a warning
rap over the fingers and had taught us to be less arrogant and
sure of ourselves. We realized, of course, that we should have to
spend the summer on the coast; but that all lay in the future, so
why lament now when everything was going so well? So I just
cracked my whip in time to Iver’s song. This was the old Iver
that I knew. But, Iver, do you not see the cirrus clouds coming up
from the north, as though they were the long arm of the Ice King
stretching out to catch us and keep us up there? They perhaps
mean storm tomorrow, and you won’t sing then. Then the wind
will be whistling and howling its harsh song of wasted days and
short commons, while the snow flakes whirl in their ghostly dance!

But Iver just laughed. ‘What of it,’ said he — ‘things are going
well today, so why wail about possible disasters tomorrow. Per¬
haps there will be a storm, perhaps there won’t; let us rejoice in
the present, even if tomorrow stifles us.*

There was something in that.

The sledging continued to go well — better and better, in fact,
as the days came and went. The ominous cirrus clouds that till
then had been such infallible harbingers of calamity now seemed
to have lost contact with the future and the evils it had in store,
and we stopped paying heed to them. Then, one day we at last
saw the sight to which we had been looking forward so hugely;

69

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

ahead and far below us we glimpsed land, land that was almost
clear of snow, an incredible sight.

We left the sledges and dogs and walked on closer to the edge
of the ice to see if there was a practicable wav down to our
promised land. For the first time for ages we had rifles bumping
on our backs, and each ,bump was like the greeting of a good
friend, one who might be able to procure us food; if only we
could get down to the land of promise where game and meat —
fantastic thought — were perhaps to be had.

However, when we reached the edge of the inland ice after
some hours’ walking, there was a sheer glacier wall of over 300 feet,
down which it would have been impossible to lower the sledges, so
we turned and walked back to our camp, fagged, disappointed
and hungry. How near was our object, land, and yet how far.

The state in which we found the camp did nothing to improve
our humour. The dogs, forgetting all their training as their masters
walked off across the ice, had broken into the tent — nothing
difficult about that — opened the tin boxes and eaten some of our
precious provisions. The few miscreants had gobbled up over two
stone of pemmican, plus a quantity of biscuits and some dried
vegetables. The omniverous creatures had topped this off with a
bit of sleeping bag, and they had licked Primus, jug and spoons
till they were clean and gleaming, which they had not been for a
long time.

There was little doubt that Girly was the prime mover in this
base theft, for she knew where the provisions were kept and, no
doubt, what the different boxes contained; for Girly was very
clever and made good use of her eyes. As we entered the tent and
saw the awful thing that had happened, Girly lay on her back,
waving her paws in wheedling apology. Grimrian and Bjorn had
taken up quarters in our sleeping bags, where they were sleeping
the heavy sleep of repletion, snoring loudly and smelling abomin¬
ably. Bitter was the awakening, for the whip handles were still
relatively whole, though the long lashes had been eaten. That last
did not matter so much at that moment, since it was only the

70

LAST DAYS ON THE INLAND ICE

whip handles we needed; as a means of punishment they exactly
suited our state of mind. We were furious. Our arms were strong
and the presumptious ones were duly taught that that particular
crime could not go unpunished. In order that justice should be
administered impartially, I thrashed Iver’s Bjorn and he my
Girly. Grimrian’s punishment was left to the last, but he got
what he deserved, first from Iver, then from me, so there was no
question of his getting off lightly.

We could scarcely sleep for the stench in our sleeping bags and
for vexation. The next morning there was no question of our being
able to sledge on. Our thieving dogs were incapable of hauling
properly, being still too gorged and, perhaps, also rather tender
from the payment we had exacted; thus, whether we liked it or
not, the dogs had to have a day’s rest, lovely and fine though the
weather was. I found it impossible to sit still, so leaving the tent,
I set off in the hope of finding a relatively practicable way down
the huge wall of ice that towered up vertically from the land
below. The previous day’s experience of leaving the dogs to guard
our belongings had proved too expensive for us to dare leave them
alone again, so Iver had to remain in camp to keep an eye on the
tent, provisions and dogs. He would have liked to come with me,
partly because of the joy of setting foot on true land again, but
mostly so as to be there to help, if I happened to come unawares
too close to a crevasse, as I very easily could. ‘I don’t like your
going alone,’ said Iver, ‘So much can happen. And what then?’

Yes, what then? If it happened, it happened, and that was all
there was to it, for we dared not leave the dogs alone with the
food.

I walked off across the glistening, steeply shelving ice, and after
several hours I found a promising place, where a huge snowdrift
had made a sort of bridge from the bottom of a winding gorge in
the sheer wall of the ice to the land below. It looked probable
that we could reach the land by going through the gorge and so
on across the snow drift, but, however tempting, I did not dare
try it, for it was so steep that I was afraid I would be unable to

71

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

climb up on to the ice again and get back to Iversen.

It was hard to have to turn when the goal of our longings was
so close, but, nonetheless, I was in high spirits as I made my way
back to Iver, and I shouted to him from a distance: ‘Tomorrow
we make our last start on this waste of ice — and before evening
we’ll camp on a carpet of heather.’ Promising words, almost too
promising and arrogant to come true, but we had been through
too hard a school not to rejoice, when we thought there was any¬
thing to rejoice at.

For a while, indeed, it looked as though I had spoken too soon,
as though all my fine promises were written in the finest drift
snow. The sun was shining, the dogs were rested and our excite¬
ment had somehow or other communicated itself to them, when
with tails waving they started off at a run across the steeply
shelving ice. The thrill of speed laid hold of my team; wilder
and wilder grew the pace, while I pulled back against them as
hard as I could, for I knew that the vertical glacier wall, 300 feet
high, was close, and just exactly where we were heading at that
crazy speed.

The sledge rolled and yawed like a boat in a storm. The ice was
now all but bare of snow, worn by the drifting snows of winter and
as smooth as a mirror. The dogs noticed nothing; they no longer
obeyed, just ran on and on; perhaps they, too, had caught the
smell of land. Then I slipped, fell and was dragged along, for I
could not get free of the trace which, as always, I had over my
shoulder. I was dragged along over the hard, smooth ice, banging
myself here and everywhere, until at last the trace broke. That
was a relief, for I knew that at least I was not going to be dragged
down to certain death. I lay where I was to collect my wits after
the wild chase and watched the sledge continue its mad career
downhill, till suddenly the stem tilted into the air and vanished
as abruptly as did the joyous barking of the dogs.

I was too battered and bruised to be able to get to my feet at
once, but I realized that Iver must be halted, if that were in any
way possible, so that his sledge should not be lost too. If it were,

7a

LAST DAYS ON THE INLAND ICE

we would be lost as well. I got to my feet with a tremendous
effort. I turned and twisted, bent low down and far back in an
attempt to discover whether I really had escaped from my rough
ride without any broken bones or other serious injury; I squeezed
myself here and there on the body’s most vulnerable spots, but it
was obvious that I was not badly hurt in any way.

It was impossible to keep your feet on that mirror-smooth slope
of ice, so I had to crawl on hands and knees, hooking on to the
least protuberance in order to get up to the crest of the rise: then
at last I saw Iver, thank goodness, without his sledge.

When he came up, he asked in a horrified voice: “What’s
happened to the sledge and the dogs?’

‘Gone over the glacier face, smashed, dead. And I nearly went
the same way,’ I replied, dully, rubbing my bruised body. ‘We’ve
lost everything there was on my sledge. It’s almost the worst thing
that could have happened, and we’ve been rejoicing so at reaching
land today!’

Iver would not believe that things were so bad. ‘Are you sure?'
he asked, in a voice that was slightly shaky — ‘Don’t you think
they might have got away with the fall?’ No, I did not. I had seen
the rear end of the sledge tilt high in the air, as if it were a ship
diving to the bottom. They did not have a chance, unless a
miracle had happened. At that moment, Iver cried out joyfully
and slid a few paces forward across the smooth ice. There really
had been a miracle. Ten yards away lay the sledge, overturned on
top of a dog that, unable to keep up the frantic pace, had got
under a runner, and thus acted as a brake. The poor dog was
whimpering pitiably, as it had every reason to do, for the sledge
was heavy. And in front of the sledge sat my Girly with her
tongue hanging far out from her flews, almost grinning as she
looked at me, as much as to say ‘What a speed, wasn’t it?’

It took us eight hours really hard work with all the dogs
harnessed to the one sledge to haul it up the ice slope, down which
I had driven, slid,^ almost flown in just a few minutes. But the
land was beckoning to us, and, the weather being still fine, we

73

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

had to go on. Off we went on another reconnaissance, and after
we had cut some 350 steps, each eighteen inches or so, in the
glassy ice or hard, compressed snow, we reached the foot of the
ice-wall and land that was free of snow and to us a paradise.

Willows grew in our paradise, a whole little copse of willows
three or four hands high and with trunks as thick as a thumb
that was swollen with frostbite and unnaturally thick. Long stalks
of grass stuck up through the snow and their rime powdered seed-
cases waved gently in a warm wind. On the bare patches, we saw
thick layers of moss, naturally frozen hard, but as soon as the sun
regained its warmth, they would melt and become soft, moist and
summery and be an invitation to rest. Our eyes were gladdened
by the sight of lovely tall heather in the particularly well-sheltered
spots, not fifty yards from the eternal ice.

When we also found a well trodden hare’s path, we uttered
joyous cries that rang across that deadly silent land, and at the
sight of fresh musk ox tracks and the smell of fresh, almost warm
musk ox droppings, our joy knew no bounds. That there were also
lots of tracks of the hares’ and musk oxen’s grim followers, the
fox and the wolf, was only in the order of things. They, too, were
greeted with delight, for so many tracks of beasts of prey were
warranty for the presence there of many herbivorous creatures.

To our eyes, this was a fertile land immensely rich in animal
life; yet just behind us stood the all but vertical face of the glacier,
1000 feet high and exhaling the searing breath of the inland ice.
The edge of the ice gleamed white and blue in the sunlight; it was
beautiful to look at, yet the outpost of the dead and desolate
inland ice, a place abandoned by the gods and soon to be
abandoned by us as well.

It was not easy to leave so wonderful a spot, but we could not
enjoy it to the full while our sledges were still up on the inland
ice, so laboriously we clambered back to them. Whipping up the
dogs, we drove down towards the gorge through which we had
just come — and halted spellbound: the sun was standing right
above a dip in the ice, and its rays were pouring in between the

74

LAST DAYS ON THE INLAND ICE

tall ice-cliffs straight towards us. There was a sparkling and
glittering on the mirror-smooth, crystal-clear banks, the ice-
crystals which, as numerous as the sands of the sea, caught the
sun’s rays and reflected them in condensed, blazing splendour.
Wherever we looked was the flash and sparkle of light and colour;
it was like a fantastically lavish firework display, something out of
the Arabian Nights, like all the fireflies of the Tropics and all the
phosphorescence of the seas.

So much beauty almost took our breath away, and we sat
down on our sledges to enjoy the magnificent spectacle. Thus it
was that the inland ice took leave of two exhausted travellers, to
whom the journey across its immense mass had been like a month¬
long nightmare. This was showing us an entirely new face, a side
of the ice we did not know at all, a brilliant bemusing sight that
branded itself upon eye and mind and cannot be forgotten as a
nightmare can.

And yet one should be able to forget it, for, after all, it was
merely splendour stolen from the glorious sun and ought not to
have impressed those who, in toil and pain, had made the
acquaintance of the Ice King’s accursed and merciless realm.
But even though we knew it was a fraud, we could not do other
than delight in the display; it was such a blaze that you almost
felt it must set the ice on fire, at the least melt it. We enjoyed the
spectacle, but the lure of the land was stronger still. The dogs were
got up again, the whip lash slipped across their backs: ‘Forget it,
dogs, it’s only a damned lie. The inland ice is not like that.’

So we slithered down through the gorge, the sledges creaking
and groaning. Though the sun was still shining brightly, it
seemed as though it were refusing to have anything more to do
with the fraud, for when we came into an ice-glen which lay in
a direction different from that in which the firework display was
being given, every sparkling gleam of light was extinguished, and
around us the ice was as naked ice is — cold, hard and glassy,
evil and grim, a realm of death from which man should keep
away.

75

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Wc wriggled the sledges downwards along narrow, sinuous
beds of streams eaten out of the smooth ice by the foaming
torrents of summer. We toiled with those sledges, onward and
downward, using their own weight to propel them, edging them
between walls of ice where it was scarcely wide enough to take
them, and though we gradually took off more and more of our
things until we were half undressed, the sweat was pouring’ off our
bodies. We struggled hard to get away from the accursed ice and
down to the land so temptingly bare of ice and snow, with its
beautiful vegetation and tracks of other live creatures. At length,
after many hours’ toil, we emerged from the winding gorge. The
walls of ice opened out, as though the inland ice were giving up
any further attempt to hold us back, and the long hard bridge of
snow linking the hated ice with the land lay in front of us; could
we let the sledges take this last hurdle in one glorious rush, or
should we be careful and lower them down?

We looked at the steep fall, measured the distance to the ice-
free land with our eyes, but we were fagged and wanted to have
it over and done with, so we closed our minds to the voice of
caution and common sense, let the sledges balance on the brink
for a moment and then gave them a shove. Off we rushed down
the snow drift in a smother of swirling snow, and with the wind
whistling round our ears, we swept right out on to the land, to
the willow bushes, to the waving stalks of grass with their heavy
rime-encrusted seed-cases, to the heather on which we had been
so greatly looking forward to pitching our tent, so that, for the
first time for ages, we might lie on a bed of something other than
ice.

It went all right, except that the dogs could not keep up with
that breakneck speed and some of them were run down by their
own sledge and got under the runners. They yelled a bit as the
sledge, weighing five or six hundredweight, squeezed them into
the hard snow. It must have hurt, but it also braked the sledge
and that was badly needed. And, besides, such treatment has no
great effect on sledge dogs. They can take the most incredible

76

LAST DAYS ON THE INLAND ICE

blows and bumps and squeezes, and ours had all suffered much
worse things up there on the inland ice that none of us would
ever tread again, if we could help it.

17

CHAPTER VIII

ON LAND AGAIN

Fertile land — Musk-oxen — Orgy — Snow-blindness — Sledging over
land — Harbingers of spring —- Danmarks Fjord

How we revelled in it all; the heather, the grass and the dwarf
willow copse that to us looked a wood, the sunshine and being
able to walk safely where we liked without having to be ever¬
lastingly on the watch for bottomless chasms, and always being
prepared to hear a warning shout of ‘Crevasse.’ The dogs enjoyed
it all as much as we did. Now they were allowed to run around
freely, for there was no danger there of their disappearing into
some gaping crevasse from which there was no escape.

-They made full use of their freedom, smelling the heather, the
grass and the willows, cocking their legs as is the way of dogs,
and giving full vent to their joy as they roamed around, uttering
little joyful whimpers over the lovely things they were finding,
sniffing at the tracks of hares and musk-oxen and scampering
back to us as though to tell us of the wonderful experiences and
smells of that extraordinary day, which had begun in the grey
of morning up on the eternal ice, 1,170 feet above where we were,
and had ended in the glow of the evening sun on fertile land.

We pitched our tent, brought armsful of heather to make a bed
softer and more heavenly than any we had ever lain on, lit a little
fire of fragrant heather, cooked some pemmican and ate, laughing
and revelling in it all, then rolled over in our sleeping bags as we
swallowed the last mouthful, and fell asleep from sheer joy and
exhaustion. And it was no wonder that we were exhausted, for it
had taken us thirty-six hours uninterrupted struggling to get
down off the inland ice.

So happy were we, that we soon woke again; and how we
revelled in being there, despite our aching limbs! The sun was
shining on to our little tent and it was warm inside it. A few

78

ON LAND AGAIN

midges were humming round us; perhaps they had come out a
little too early, but it was a sort of spring, summer even for us, and
a large bumble bee was already busy about whatever is its purpose
in life.

We had been looking forward to reaching land as much as if
we had been shipwrecked and in the utmost distress on a foaming,
storm-whipped sea. Great as had been our expectation, it was as
nothing compared with the delight of reality. And that is a thing
that seldom happens to me.

There was, however, one little snake in our Garden of Eden.
The firework display given by the inland ice, and the many hours
we had spent out on snow and ice glittering with sunlight had
been too much for my eyes; they had been prickly and sore when
I went to sleep but, when I woke up, they were horribly painful,
as though fine salt and pepper had been sprinkled on them.

How I cursed! Here was I wanting my eyes for revelling in the
beauties of God’s nature and well on the way to being snow-
blind ! I should have to be very careful. A bandage over my eyes
would soon put them right and some drops of cocaine would
relieve the pain. But, nevertheless, it was a sad business having to
sit in the lovely sunshine outside the tent and not be able to see all
the glories around me.

Iver helped me as well as he could, talking the whole time.
‘See here,’ he said to me, who could not see, ‘here’s the loveliest
heather. And here’s such a big willow, and over there by the slope
to the left is taller grass than any we’ve yet seen.’

We had to have at least one quiet day so that my snow blind¬
ness might pass ofF, and also we had solemnly promised the dogs
that they should have a whole day’s rest when we reached land,
and that promise had to be kept; thus it made little difference
that my eyes also made it essential to stay where we were for a
day; so we made a virtue of necessity, rested and enjoyed the
delight of the dogs, the sun and the fact of having got down to land.

Suddenly, Iver exclaimed in a voice that trembled with excite¬
ment. ‘Look, see there! Don’t you see the cows?’ ‘Cows?’ I

79

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

thought angrily and said so too, ‘Has the inland ice robbed you
of your senses, Iver, or are you dreaming of your family’s farm in
Jutland?’

‘No, no,’ cried Iver, ‘you must be able to see them. There they
are again!’ Iver was so excited that it was obvious there must be
something, so cautiously I lifted the bandage from my eyes and
just caught a glimpse of what, to my painful, watering eyes,
looked like two large stones. Iver said they were cows, he meant
musk-oxen but, in his joy, had forgotten where we were. He thrust
a rifle into my hand and, while I floundered along behind, he
ran on ahead. A shot rang out, and so I too shot at the nearest
stone, which seemed as big as a haystack and impossible to miss,
even for someone who was half blind. Iver gave a joyful yell. He
had been right; they were musk-oxen and one was dead, the
other wounded and soon dead as well. And then there was feasting
in the land!

The dogs went quite wild at the sight and smell of blood and
meat. They ate till their bellies were almost bursting, paused for a
moment to recover, then ate again, digging into the carcase of the
big bull till they had blood and shreds of meat sticking to their
heads and bodies. They ate on and on until they collapsed,
exhausted and gasping, then they slept for awhile, snoring loudly,
woke themselves with their snores and went on eating.

It was a magnificent feast. There was a heavenly smell in our
tent, as Iver cooked us steaks an inch thick. As we ate them, the
juice ran down our chins and over our fingers, which we licked
clean. And then we ate some more, threw the bones out to the
dogs which could scarcely bother to touch them. That feast of
ours on the fringe of the inland ice was worthy of the heroes in
Valhalla.

As dogs and men fell asleep in utter repletion, the news of the
feast went out over the land to its wild creatures, the foxes and
wolves. They came from afar to our little camp and carried on
where we and the dogs had given up, feasting undisturbed. The
dogs did not even resent the fact that their close but hated relatives

80

ON LAND AGAIN

had come unbidden to their feast. Thus, if one of them, waking
from its sleep of repletion, felt an urge to eat and went on again,
dog and fox would each be so occupied with eating, that neither
paid any attention to the presence of the other.

We could not stay long, though, and once we had more or less
recovered from our repletion, we harnessed the dogs to the
sledges and drove off across the lake, to which chance had brought
us. We took one last look at the inland ice, glad to be rid of the
sight of it, however lovely it now was in the bright sunshine.

We now saw nothing but high and lovely land on either shore
of the lake, rounded hillocks covered with grass and heather; every
step revealed something new and pretty to go into ecstasies over —
it was, indeed, different from the dead and desolate expanse of
the inland ice.

And see! There on the slope was a herd of musk-oxen grazing
within range, big stolid bulls, sure-footed cows and slight heifers
and some small, new-born calves as well. We sat down on the
slopes to enjoy the sight of the splendid creatures. They seemed to
be playing, though it looked a dangerous game; and there was a
couple of bulls who were especially fierce.

They backed away from each other, sharpened their horns on
large stones and then thundered across the ground straight at
each other and collided head on. The impact was so violent that
both bulls were forced almost vertically up on their hind legs.
The noise of it aroused echoes far and wide, yet long before the
last of them had died away in a whispering, the two bulls had
forgotten they were fighting and had taken to grazing, though
glaring balefaUy at each other as they cropped the grass. They
could not eat long, however, but had to have another trial of
strength; they were the males fighting for the favour of the
females.

It was tempting for us to intervene, but the sledges were already
piled with meat and we hoped that, if we shewed moderation
that day, luck would smile on us when we had real need for game.

We had been so hungry ourselves that we did not want to kill

81

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

unless absolutely necessary, and so we decided to let the musk¬
oxen live. We put our hands to our mouths and uttered great
bellows that echoed from mountain to mountain. The musk-oxen
paused in their trial of strength and looked wonderingly at the
strange noisy creatures who had burst in upon their domain.
They did not feel altogether happy in our vicinity, yet they
walked along the hillside quite quiedy, snatching mouthfuls as
they went and so disappeared over the crest.

We were pleased and proud of our self-control, and hoped
most heartily that, in some days’ time, when we should be
without meat again, it would be rewarded.

We sledged on northwards towards Danmarks Fjord, following
a long, narrow lake, little more than a broad river bed, surrounded
by a confusion of domed hilltops with little valleys in between.
Near us, all round us, we saw signs of Spring’s arrival, saw it in
the delicate greenish garb that the domed hilltops and valleys
were on the point of assuming. The grass and the heather were
beginning to sprout, and the willows, the lovely little willows,
were covered with catkins. We heard the coming of Spring in
the slight drip and trickle of water in every furrow upon the
rounded hilltops, where moss and lichen were green on the sunny
side, but still frozen and grey where they faced the mountain and
the icy north. And some small birds were chirruping joyfully in
the golden sunshine that filled the valley and caressed the blunt
tops of the hills.

We rejoiced in the spring and when, every hour or so, we halted
for a short rest, we sat and revelled in the sight of that lovely
land and of the huge masses of mountains far to the east and west
standing up blue and cold against the light shimmering spring
sky; meanwhile the dogs bustled about to the extent of their
traces, till they found a nice spot smelling of spring on which to
lie. The harsh inland ice was already forgotten by both men and
dogs.

Every now and again we clambered up an eminence to see what
awaited us beyond, where the lake disappeared behind a large

8 a

ON LAND AGAIN

black mountain-side — often we caught a glimpse of Danmarks
Fjord, the high Sjaellands Mountains and the black nose of
Cape Holbaek bathed in a strip of bright sunshine, a magnificent
sight. As we lay there in the heather enjoying the rest, the spring,
the sunshine and the view of the nearby mountains and the others
in the distance, my thoughts went back to that other autumn
when Mylius-Erichsen, Haeg-Hagen and Branlund had been
making their way from the north towards the very parts where we
now were, looking for the inland ice which we had just left so
gladly, but which they had thought was the road to deliverance,
the shortest way to a snug ship and their comrades.

What had their thoughts been on those dark, cold and stormy
days, when they were where we now lay sunning ourselves?
Were they prepared for the fate that awaited them up there on
the merciless inland ice? Had they lost hope of being able to get
through, or were they still animated by the optimism which is so
general among polar travellers, who always believe that, somehow
or other, they will manage, however dark and uncertain the
outlook may be at the time.

And how had they got up On to the inland ice in the autumn,
when the sunshine and floods of summer must have melted the
great snowdrifts like that we had successfully come down? And
where was the long, dead glacier which Branlund mentioned in
his journal, the place which, when they saw it in the distance,
they had thought would provide easy access up on to the inland
ice?

We had not seen it. On the contrary, the place where we now
were, and where they had been three years before, was bounded
to the south by an almost vertical wall of ice, at least a thousand
feet high, and no ascent of it was possible, not even where we had
come down. Had the dead, flat glacier for which they had been
making been an optical illusion ? Had refracted light conjured up
the vision of a practicable route where no way existed?

It was pointless to puzzle one’s head over this but, nevertheless,
my thoughts kept turning to the three unfortunate men, who had

83

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

been as young and as fond of life as we. They had succumbed to
the cold somewhere between the place where we now stood and
the sheer, black mountains at Lamberts Land, on the same route
as that along which we had just come. We, however, had travelled
at a time of relatively good weather and with good equipment;
yet the inland ice had given us toil and trouble enough. Mylius
and his companions were going in the opposite direction, and that
at a time of darkness, cold and storm, with wretched clothing, no
nourishing food, no dogs. They probably still had hope that they
would get through somehow or other, but they couldn’t have had
much faith in their doing so.

A cloud drifted across the heavens, slid across the sun and the
land became dark and drear and cold. Resting was no longer
pleasant and, as we walked down the mountain side back to the
lake and our sledges, we found litde to say. What lay ahead of us
might also prove difficult to come through.

We sledged on. The barking of the dogs awakened the echoes
among the mountains, and the act of working drove all vain and
morbid thoughts from our heads.

The going was hard but possible. We had had difficult sledging
before and would have it again, before we got across the mountain
ahead of us, the last before Danmarks Fjord. To this we came in
time, struggled up its steep slopes on which there was little snow,
and at last reached the crest and looked out across the vast
expanse of ice encompassed by tall, grim mountains, which was
Danmarks Fjord and our goal.

Then the sledges swept with a rush down a snowdrift, shot
across a tide-water fissure and, before we realized what was
happening, we had left the land and were back once more on
sea ice!

84

CHAPTER IX

IN DANMARKS FJORD

No game — We find the first cairn — Speculation on the dead men’s
behaviour — We find the second cairn — Where Mylius-Erichsen spent
the summer — The fate of their diaries

While we were still on the inland ice, we had envisaged sledging
in Danmarks Fjord as a sort of ideal journey in a paradise of
security, where meat was to be had whenever necessary. The reality
did not quite come up to those joyful expectations, but then, any
paradise to which you look forward in the hour of trial usually
proves far less lovely than you had imagined.

On the sea ice of Danmarks Fjord we were, of course, relieved
of any fear of crevasses, and for that we were duly grateful. The
cold, too, was less and the storms far from as violent as on the
inland ice, but otherwise there was no great difference between
existence up there half way to heaven and that where we now
struggled over the sea ice parallel with the land, where we
expected and hoped to find traces of our three predecessors.

Fear of what would happen to us, two lone men, had followed
us across the inland ice as one of two very depressing, invisible
companions whom we found it impossible to shake off. We had
hoped, however, to leave them behind up there, but such fear is
not so easily shaken off; even down on the sea ice, where we felt
safe from crevasses and many other horrors which only the inland
ice could produce, we found that our invisible shadow was still
with us, whispering ominous warnings about everything we did.

It was a different fear that accompanied us now, not fear of
crevasses but fear that our labours would be in vain, that that
which we had struggled to find, hoped to find, been sure of
finding, was nonetheless not to be found. Were that to be the
case, it would be hard to bear, even though the fault could not
be ours.

Once fear has entered into you, it easily becomes hydra-headed,

«5

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

and each head speaks only words of ill omen. One voice was busy
whispering to us what we knew very well but kept trying to put
from us, that the dogs would be unable to carry on much longer,
and that we still had a good seven hundred miles to Shannon
Island. Another voice kept muttering that, of course, we would
not come across the game we had to have to get through. Not
even Mylius and his companions had got enough to save their
lives, and one of them was a Greenlander and knew far more
about Greenland hunting than either of us. Without game, our
sledges would soon be bare of food either for men or dogs. And
the warning voice muttered something about imagining what our
feelings would be on the day when we had used up all our
cartridges without hitting anything, so that we were left without
even the possibility of getting more food, about starvation and
the consequences of that — which, of course was obvious, because
we would still be nearly seven hundred miles from Shannon, the
only place on that coast where we knew for certain that food was
to be had.

When we looked at each other’s somewhat ravaged faces, there
came another voice with a horrible question: Have you, foolhardy
man, thought what it would mean if your companion got lost in
the mist, when he was out hunting alone ? Or if he broke a leg in
the pack ice? Or suppose he fell ill ? What would you do? Would
you leave him where he was, or would you try to get him to
Shannon? And what would he do, if you fell ill? Are you not ill
already? What, otherwise, arc those queer pains you have? Why
else do you feel so unutterably tired? That’s no natural tiredness!
And remember, you are more than seven hundred miles from
the ship at Shannon! Do you really think that one of you could
get a sick companion there, if an accident should happen?

Fools, if you think that! But you are great fools, so remember
that your dogs will die soon. And you cannot possibly think that
you can save a sick companion after that. Better give it up straight
away.

And how would you like being left alone up here in this

86

IN DANMARKS FJORD

incredibly vast wilderness? Just imagine how awful that must be.
Do you remember that day on the inland ice when you did not
know where Ivcr was ? And how you felt then ? He was only gone
for a short time, scarcely an hour, but long enough for you to be
able to imagine what it would be like to have to stumble on alone
all the seven hundred miles to Shannon Island.

That was an appalling thought, and each time we were left
alone, even for a short while, fear whispered to us: Imagine what
it will be like if he does not come back. You will be alone like the
dead in their graves — and yet above. It will be awful.

At other times, another voice muttered something about our
skins and sleeping bags, which had been whole and good when
we left the ship, now being so tom and worn that the wind whistled
through great holes in the skins and the sleeping bags kept
shedding handfuls of hair. They were, perhaps, still good enough
for summer use, the voice said, but seven hundred miles was a
very, very long way to have to pull a sledge with only weak dogs,
or no dogs at all. Progress would be very slow, if we could even
force our sledge along. And perhaps we might have to spend a
winter as well as a summer on the coast, and what then?

Then the many-tongued ghost had no need to say more, for we
knew exactly how things would go then — hundreds of miles
from Shannon Island.

The ghost found it easy to affect us in our weakened state with
its ominous mutterings. Perhaps I was the easier prey, for I had
the moral responsibility for Iver’s relative welfare, and also I felt
so strangely and inexplicably tired, so tired that I could scarcely
get going in the mornings and felt tired all day long.

Such thoughts are not healthy for people sledging seven hun¬
dred miles from their base, and they have to be knocked on the
head before they get too much of a hold. Work is a good medicine
for morbid thoughts, so we threw our weight into the traces and
toiled with the sledges and the tired dogs, shouting at them so as
to put the silence to flight, labouring to cover a few miles of the
many hundreds we had to cover before we could stop struggling.

8 7

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

That did not help so very much, for it just allowed another of
our grim, terrible companions to make itself felt all the more —
hunger. Always we could hear its urgent voice, feel its pressure
when our stomachs were empty, as they were almost all the time.
The musk-oxen meat, which had come like a gift from Heaven,
when we escaped down off the inland ice, was long since eaten.
And, for the time being, the gods were not being lavish with their
gifts, even though some days before we had magnanimously given
two musk-oxen their lives, relying on being in the gods’ good
graces.

As we sledged along the coast, our eyes were fixed on the land
we were passing, carefully scrutinizing everything we could not
immediately identify. Nothing could escape our watchful gaze,
whether it was edible or the thing we had come so far to find:
traces of the missing men.

We saw no musk-oxen either on the slopes of the mountains
which rose fairly steeply from the line of the coast, nor in the
places where the rim of mountains was broken to make way for
a litde flat ground. Nor did we see any of their tracks when to¬
gether we walked deep into the land to where we had seen some¬
thing we thought resembled a musk-ox. Or could that be a cairn,
perhaps, that tall pointed thing there, like a stone?

Many a time our searching eyes were fooled into thinking they
saw one or the other, and every time we were disappointed:
what we had thought was a musk-ox, or what we took to be a cairn
set up by the missing men, were nothing but large, moss-grown
stones.

And there were innumerable stones, big stones, stones like
musk-oxen and stones like cairns — and just as many disappoint¬
ments.

There was nothing but disappointment there in Danmarks
Fjord, the place to which we had looked forward so much. The
going was very heavy and our daily distances were all too small,
inhuman though our labour was. Even the weather was a dis¬
appointment, for it was far rougher than it should have been at

IN DANMARKS FJORD

that time of year. Grey-black clouds hung low above our heads,
the wind was quite stiff and almost continually in our faces; snow
fell and drifted, not dry snow as fine as dust, as on the inland ice,
but moist, clammy snow that caked on our clothes, in our beards
and hair.

We toiled slowly along, wasting many hours investigating every
stone that stood out in any way, for it might well have been a
cairn. And when mist hid the land, we halted lest we should pass
a cairn or other trace of the missing men, and also to give the
dogs a badly needed rest.

In the end, our hard staring was rewarded. Some distance
away, on a shoulder of the mountain, we saw what could not
possibly have been a musk-ox, but was possibly a cairn. When we
eventually reached the spot, we Hung down our traces and hurried
up the steep slope to what we had so long had our eyes on. and
which we could now see was indeed a cairn.

Beside the cairn lay a large piece of drift-wood and several
smaller bits of wood. Were we to be disappointed again? Had
Mylius and his companions merely raised the cairn so that they
could find the wood again, once the autumn snow had fallen?
Or did it perhaps contain the communication from the missing
men, which we were hoping and expecting to find in the fjord?

We could scarcely believe that we were so close to our objective.
Carefully we loosened a couple of stones from the foot of the cairn,
so that we could peer inside. To our delight, we saw a cartridge
lying on a flat stone. That could only be a message from the men
who had vanished in the wilderness of ice.

Carefully we opened the cartridge and picked out the tightly
rolled piece of paper inside; then we sat down on a stone and
read Mylius-Erichsen’s confident message, written just before
they had left that place. But let him tell it himself:

Danmarks Fjord, circa 8x° 25 N.

September 12, 1907,

Today, Hagen, Bronlund and the undersigned, all fit and well,
leave this place, called Wolf Hill, with one sledge and seven dogs,

89

IN DANMARKS FJORD

to start our journey back to the ship on new and, today at W g
last, safe ice. Since leaving our summer camp about eleven
Danish miles (circa 51 miles) from here, on August 8, we have
had to kill seven dogs for food to keep ourselves and the surviving
dogs going, while lying out on the sea ice, half a mile from land,
where we were halted for 16 days by water on the ice. Finally, on
August 25, we reached land and shot four hares. Since then, we
have moved camp in short marches, totalling some thirty-five miles,
up Danmarks Fjord, continually hindered in our progress towards
more favourable hunting grounds by mild weather and impassable
new ice and latterly by open water from coast to coast. We have
been on foot across the mountains, followed by the dogs, for a
further forty-five miles up the fjord to Sjoellands plain, shooting
in all 15 young ptarmigan, 15 hares, r wolf and 8 musk-oxen
(2 bulls, 3 cows and 3 calves); we camped a week in the open,
cooking with drift-wood, which we found in abundance along the
shore, fed the dogs up and brought meat and suet to this place,
which is the most southerly point in the fjord we have been able
to reach by sledge. The ice further in is still unsafe, but we had
thought of possibly returning via the inland ice from the head of
Danmarks Fjord to the fjord on 79 0 N. Presume we have had up
to 15 0 below (Celsius) in the last Few weeks. Are carrying on the
sledge drift-wood for eight days’ cooking and over 300 lbs. of
meat, sufficient to feed us for 16 days and the dogs for 8 days.
Are following the bay east to the outer coast, some 170 miles,
and with the depots we laid there in the spring and what bear we
can shoot, hope to be able to reach the ship safe and sound in
5 or 6 weeks.

L. MYLIUS- ERICHSEN,

Leader of ‘Danmark Expedition.’

Conditions had obviously been reasonably good for the three
men there, and they had found quite a lot of game. They had left
the little headland where we now were, hoping, with considerable
justification, that they would be able to win through and return
to their ship safe and sound.

90

IN DANMARKS FJORD

The three had left the headland on September 12, heading up
Danmarks Fjord, looking for a way out. We had two other dates
to help trace their progress till death overtook them. One of them
was given in Jorgen Bronlund’s diary, which ended by recording
that the three men —

‘On October ig, in the afternoon, arrived up on the inland
ice; the ascent took four days. The fifth of our remaining dogs is
now dead, gored by a musk-ox. The sun no longer gets above the
horizon.’

The next and last date (November 15) shows that the journey
across the inland ice, from where they climbed up from Danmarks
Fjord to the sea ice just north of Lamberts Land, took at the most
26 days, for Jorgen Branlund wrote just before he died:

‘Succumbed at 79 Fjord after attempting return across inland
ice in November. I arrived here in fading moonlight and
could go no further because of frost-bitten feet and the dark. The
bodies of the others are to be found in front of the glacier in the
middle of the fjord (about 12 miles). Hagen died November 15
and Mylius some 10 days after.’

Mylius Erichsen and his two companions had thus been
sledging in Danmarks Fjord from September 12 to October 19,
thirty-seven days in all. According to the message we found in
the cairn at Wolf Hill, the three men left there with seven dogs
quite confident of being able to sledge northwards out of Danmarks
Fjord. They intended to take with them enough meat for sixteen
days’ personal use and eight days’ feed for the dogs, as well as
drift-wood to last for the same period. That was not much, yet
enough for them to have been able to reach their most northerly
depot on the outer coast (at the north-east rounding) some 160
miles from Wolf Hill. That, of course, is a considerable distance
to sledge when you have provisions for only sixteen days and your
strength and endurance have been diminished by the hardships of
summer. The latter could possibly, even probably, be offset some¬
what by the fact that sledging conditions are normally relatively
good in the early autumn. The new ice usually provided good

9 *

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

going at the end of September, when, too, the weather was
normally good and the days relatively long. These factors should
all have helped them to get to their most northerly depot, which
they never did reach, for we later found it untouched.

On the other hand, autumn sledging across relatively freshly
frozen ice always entails, especially along the unprotected outer
coast, a certain risk that storm or heavy swell will destroy the new
ice and its good sledging conditions, with the result that a sledge
party can be forced to halt for several days till the ice becomes
practicable again. It may well have been this that forced the
three men to change their plans and give up the attempt to reach
the depot on the north-east rounding, the route that presumably
would have saved them, since they had a string of well-supplied
caches to cany them on. We know, however, from Bronlund’s
journal that, instead of going all out to reach the cache that would
have saved them, the three men made their way back to the inner
arm of Danmarks Fjord, in order to get up on to the inland ice.

It can hardly have been acute shortage of provisions that made
the three change their plan and their route, for they left Wolf Hill
in Danmarks Fjord with seven dogs and we know from the next,
and last, entry in Brenlund’s journal that they still had five dogs
when they were climbing up on to the inland ice, for he wrote
‘the fifth of our remaining dogs is now also dead, gored to death
by a musk-ox.’

Thus, in thirty-seven days, the number of their dogs had been
reduced by only two, which must mean that hunting had been
good enough to have provided meat to feed the dogs for about a
month and enough for themselves for at least a fortnight. Unless
they had that much, they would certainly have killed the dogs to
feed themselves and the remaining dogs; yet, from September 12
when they left Wolf Hill, to the second last entry in Jorgen
Brenlund’s journal (October 19), their team had been reduced by
only two.

It is useless to speculate what were the causes of Mylius
Erichsen’s and his companions’ repeated alterations of plan and

9a

IN DANMARKS FJORD

route, but they must obviously have had an awful time of it, if
they came to see that there was less and less hope of their ever
getting through, that they were just wasting the days in idle
roaming across unknown land. More than a month passed before
they finally seized the last desperate chance to break out of the
magic circle in which they had been so long without finding a
practical road to deliverance. Wherever they searched, they had
found their road barred by high mountains, the inland ice or
open water, and then, in a final attempt to escape, they had
hauled themselves up on to the inland ice in November and
headed through darkness, cold, storm and blinding snow —
knowing full well that death followed in their tracks and must
catch them up. As things had turned out, they were unable to
wait for conditions to improve and let them get back to the ship
via the coast. Iver was right when, after reading the message from
the cairn, he exclaimed ‘Poor devils, so glad, so confident when
they were here. And then what! What must they have suffered
before the end came ?’

There was nothing more to be found at the cairn, no reason to
linger there, so we went back to our dogs. We had to press on.
The find at the cairn meant that our search for traces of the
missing men had not been in vain, but when we got back to the
sledges, we were made painfully aware that we were likely to
have our own problems to contend with before we got back to
the ship, for we found one of the dogs dead of overwork.

That left us with only seven dogs and none of them good.

After four days of hard sledging, which cost the life of yet
another dog, we finally reached a place which, as far as we could
judge from Jorgen Branlund’s journal, was where the three had
spent some agonizing summer months with hunger, uncertainty
and doubt as their constant companions.

It was a desolate, gloomy place. There was not even the smallest
willow to be seen, not a blade of grass, no vegetation of any kind
but a little moss on the sunny side of the beds of the many streams
that had dug themselves deep into the ground. Everywhere we

93

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

found traces of a protracted stay: footmarks trodden deep in dry
soil, cairns on every hill crest, small ends of rope, here and there
a bone and a few scraps of material, both tent canvas and cloth.
It was obvious that that had been a hunger camp, for each piece
of cloth or rope, every bit of anything that could be swallowed
had been gulped down by the omnivorous sledge dogs and had
passed through them. If such food had not nourished, it had at
least given the illusion of a full stomach for a short while.

We also found the three men’s hearth: the iron tyre of a
sledge-runner had been stuck in a can filled with stones and the
end bent over so as to form a hook on which the cooking pot could
hang. The actual hearth consisted of just two or three stones,
between which there was still some ash and charred bits of wood
and bone. They had burned everything that would bum.

Round the hearth were placed three dog-food boxes, empty of
food but filled with stones. They made slightly better seats for
the three to sit on at their fire than the local sharp-edged stones.
A ring of stones near the hearth shewed where the tent had stood
in 1907.

That was all. Seldom have I seen any place so desolate and
depressing. In front of us lay the wide fjord, still an unbroken
sheet of ice, but it was dull ice that was saturated with water
and thus no pleasant sight for us who, in a few days’ time, would
have to chance our luck and try to cross it to some flat islands on
the other side. That was not a cheerful prospect.

To the south stretched a monotonously fiat coast with a stony
foreshore; to the north, the eye followed a somewhat higher, but
equally uniform, coast to Gape Rigsdagen, a god-forsaken and
unutterably gloomy place, far beyond which lay the most easterly
part of Peary Land, just visible above the horizon.

All around us were a number of cairns, but the first, second and
third that we opened were empty and so were the fourth and
fifth — and we began to grow anxious. The place was incontest¬
ably the dead men’s summer camp. They had stayed there for at
least a couple of months, and it was there that we had expected

94

IN DANMARKS FJORD

to find a detailed report, perhaps also journals, for this was a
likely place for them to have been left, as they would have been
relatively easy to find, if the three failed to reach home.

There were plenty of cairns, but where could the report have
been hidden ?

Then wc opened the last cairn which stood quite far inland,
and there at last we found what we sought, what we had sledged
so far to find: a thermometer case, well plugged, and in it an
account of their energetic attempts to map as much as possible of
the vast, unknown land — and of their heroic fight to maintain
life during the couple of months that an evil fate and the arrival
of summer had forced them to spend at that desolate and dismal
spot.

That report should decide matters for us. Would it, we won¬
dered, contain information that would compel us to continue on,
or would it tell us that we had come to our journey’s end and that
we could now turn and try to make our way back, knowing that
we had done everything we could be expected to have done.

This was what we read:

‘On May 28, 1907, at the north-east promontory of this land
(circa 82° 04 N. and 22 W.), Lieutenant Hagen, the Greenlander
Brenlund and the undersigned parted company with Lieutenant
Koch’s sledge team, which had reached the northern point of
Greenland and was on the way back to the ship at Cape Bismarck.
We sledged westwards with 23 dogs until June x and reached
Peary’s Cape Glacier and discovered that Peary Channel does
not exist. Navy Cliff is joined by land to Heilprin Land. We re¬
christened Independence Bay “Independence Fjord” and built a
cairn (with a report) on a low headland near Cape Glacier. On the
way out of the fjord, we discovered and explored two subsidiary
fjords: Brenlund’s Fjord to the north-west and Hagen’s Fjord to
the south-east, and built a cairn (containing a report) at the
latter. Discovered old Eskimo tent rings.

‘The sudden arrival of milder weather with deep snow and
water on the ice, lack of game, illness and weakness among the

95

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

dogs, hampered and delayed our journey out of the fjord, with
the result that we only reached this place on June la. All further
progress across the ice was by then impossible. Only 15 of the
dogs were then still alive and another has died since. Since then,
we have fed ourselves exclusively on game (7 musk-oxen, 1 calf,
15 wild geese, 4 hares and 3 ptarmigan). Have done further
surveying and added to our scientific collections with plants and
fossils of plants and animals. Called the land “Crown Prince
Christian’s Land.”

‘Not having got any large game since July 16, and being without
further food for ourselves and the dogs, we must today leave this
area, which is quite empty of game and which we have scoured
for 25 miles around, and try to make our way to coastal areas
with game — having first ferried ourselves on an ice-floe across to
the continuous ice with our 14 dogs, 2 sledges and all our gear.
We are all three perfectly fit and well. We shall try to get some¬
what farther to the south-west up Danmarks Fjord, where we
found plenty of hares and musk-oxen to shoot, when we travelled
it in May. If we can manage to get a sufficient supply of meat, we
intend, when the ice finally becomes serviceable towards the end
of the current month, to sledge the 580 miles or so back to the
ship, which we hope to reach before the end of September, with
or without dogs.

‘The cairns built here in the vicinity have been put up by
Hagen for the purpose of trigonometric measurements and contain
no reports.

*We will leave accounts of our further fate in one or more
cairns further up the fjord.

August 8, 1907. L. MYLIUS-ERICHSEN,

Leader of “Danmark Expedition to
the North-east Coast of Greenland,
1906-1908.” *

This statement, together with the information contained in the
diary we had found on Bronlund’s body at Lamberts Land, gave

96

IN DANMARKS FJORD

a fairly complete picture of the three men’s joumeyings and work
in the country round Danmarks Fjord, and of their intended
return journey to their winter harbour, which had ended in their
succumbing to hunger and cold in the dark days of November at
Lamberts Land.

We could now turn and go back with an easy mind, for in
Danmarks Fjord, in the whole of that huge area that lay spread
before us, there was nothing more to find.

The men had taken their journals with them when they left
the place where we now were, and they had taken them with
them when they left Wolf Hill farther to the south, so they were
certain to have taken them across the inland ice to their last
camping place on the sea ice in front of the glacier at Lamberts
Land. When Jargen Bronlund left the camp there and his two
dead companions, he took his own journal and the sketch maps
they had made, which were common property. And so he had
walked on alone through the darkness and cold — till he suc¬
cumbed by the cache at Lamberts Land.

When, three years later, we reached the place where the camp
must have been, we were too late. The thaws of three summers
had melted the ice, or broken it up so that it had drifted out to
sea with all that it carried.

All the anxious thoughts that had tormented the three men
during the many dreary days of summer in Danmarks Fjord were
reflected in Mylius-Erichsen’s concise accounts, which he had
written on his own behalf and that of his companions and
deposited in a couple of cairns on the shores of that desolate land,
hoping that they might be found if they themselves did not get
through.

They were found, and when Iver and I stood with them in our
hands, we were filled with the deepest admiration for the three
who had fought so hard to explore unknown land, had conquered
and paid for victory with months of wondering whether they
would ever be able to get through to the cache that would save
them, and fearing that their lives might be sacrificed in vain.

97

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

There was nothing more to be found in Danmarks Fjord,
nothing more for us to do; we could now turn and try to get back
to the ship seven hundred miles away in the south — and that,
roughly, at the same time of year as when the three dead men
had tried to perform the same journey.

We pitched our tent near the heart of the dead men’s summer
camp and, as we lay in our sleeping bags, Iver and I spoke of
their hopes, disappointments and sufferings. But wc were too
tired and fagged to be able to think of much beyond how wc
should fare on our journey across the dull white surface, glistening
with moisture, that had halted and killed the three who had
attempted it before us.

As we lay diere in our sleeping bags, I again took up a matter
that had latterly occupied us greatly, and, for the last time, asked
Iver what he thought: should we go westwards in the hope of
being able to reach the Eskimoes at Thule, or should we try to do
what the dead men had not been able to do — to make our way
southwards along the coast to our ship seven hundred miles away.
The two routes were roughly of the same length and, having
explained all that was to be said in favour of the one or the other,
and the objections to either, I said something to the effect that
we should tliink well, for a mistake could cost us our lives.

Iver sat up in his sleeping bag, rubbed his eyes as if he had been
asleep during my long expos 6 of the pros and cons — as perhaps
he had — and said ‘You arc skipper in this ship. Go cast, if you
think that best; or west, if you like. I’ll follow wherever you go,
and I promise that, if things go wrong, you’ll never hear me say
that perhaps it would have been better if we had gone the other
way.’

The next day we started out on our homeward journey —
heading cast.

CHAPTER X

SLEDGING IN SLUSH

Scurvy and its consequences — Dogs and sledge in slush — Caches on the
coast — Bear hunting — Early summer — Mt Mallemuk and deliverance

We had begun our return journey about June i, leaving dreary
Cape Rigsdagen in the west, and struggling across the mouth of
Darunarks Fjord to the spot where our tent now stood on an
island off flat ice-bound Crown Prince Christian’s Land, a little
black speck in the vast expanse of white that extended all around.
Our dogs had found some dry spots, where they were resting
after an arduous stage, during which they had hauled the sledges
thirty miles through an appalling slush of deep watery snow.
Iver was away hunting, hoping to get some meat for us and the
dogs, who badly needed food with some nourishment in it, and
meanwhile I was sitting on a rolled-up sleeping bag inside the
tent, fighting dark thoughts about the future, which appeared so
uncertain and gloomy.

Not uncertain, though, for as I sat there in our camp on that
little island, seven hundred miles from our ship, there was little
uncertainty about our future as far as I was concerned. I had
discovered that I had been stricken by what is well-nigh the
heaviest blow that can fall upon anyone sledging far from any
place where help is to be had. I was ill, suffering from that bugbear
of the early polar explorers and many a good man’s death —
scurvy.

For some time, I had had a fairly well-founded idea that all
was not well with me, that the weariness that had come over me
toward the end of the journey across the inland ice, and especially
while sledging down Danmarks Fjord, was more than the natural
consequence of the hard labour it had cost to get our sledges so
far. Nor was it like me to anticipate misfortune, which was what
I had done so often in Danmarks Fjord, and that had made me

o

99

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

wonder. Yet I had never for a moment suspected that illness
might be the cause of my weariness and my gloomy view of the
future, that I could have contracted scurvy.

But scurvy was what I had, and fairly badly at that: the tender,
swollen joints, the vivid patches on legs and thighs, loose teeth
and tender, bleeding gums, the giddiness when I hauled hard on
the sledge, this all spoke a gloomy message there was no mis¬
understanding. I now sat on my sleeping bag, trying to remember
what the medical handbook had had to say about the disease.
But why did I bother ? I did not have any of the things the hand¬
book would tell me were necessary to cure the dread disease, nor
any means of acquiring them. The only result of racking my
brains was that I suddenly remembered that the description of
the disease had contained, printed in italics, ‘If immediate treat¬
ment is not given, scurvy will bring on fainting and end in death.’

So that was that, and there we were without medicine of any
kind or any possibility of treatment or rest, and some seven
hundred miles from the ship. But even if we had been at the
ship, we would have had no effective medicines for scurvy, for
people thought that modern tinned foods had put an end to that,
and they were no longer carried. Yet if wc were to get through to
the ship, we should have to labour hard, far harder than a
doomed man could manage. And what about Ivcr? He could
hardly make his way back to the sliip alone. In fact, there was
no ‘hardly’; it was impossible for him to get through alone, so he
too must die, if I died. And, in all probability, I was going to
die of scurvy, as so many had before me. But, till then, I would be
an intolerable burden round his neck. I would delay him, hold
him back, drag him, my faithful companion, slowly but surely to
destruction.

My head buzzed with such thoughts, and I sank deeper and
deeper into the vortex of despondency; and when Iver returned
empty-handed, I told him baldly what was wrong with me and
what it meant to him.

He did not say much, though he must have thought a lot. The

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SLEDGING IN SLUSH

rapid dwindling of my strength had surprised him too, and he
had long feared that it was illness and not just the toil that made
me feel so tired and fagged. But he had never thought of it being
scurvy either.

If there had been three of us, as had been the intention until
Jorgensen got his feet so badly frost-bitten that he was crippled,
the outlook would not have been quite so dark. Two men would
naturally have had a far better chance of getting the sledge
through to Shannon Island, even if I were lying on it, a mere
extra burden. But one man alone? Impossible, quite impossible.
He could never get there.

Again and again the thought returned, that perhaps I ought to
have given up the journey to Danmarks Fjord when circumstances
had changed and I found myself with only one man to accompany
me — even though he was better than the best. But who can listen
to the cautious voice of dull commonsense, when you have already
embarked on a venture that many considered impracticable? Not
I, at least. Impracticable? Then it must be done. But luck had
deserted us — and there was nothing more to be said.

It was two very silent men who crawled into their sleeping bags
that night and found sleep long in coming. Ivcr was all that I had
expected, and more. ‘Listen,’ he said, when he had got used to
the idea, ‘it’s bad, of course, with this damned scurvy. But I
promise you that I shall do everything to help you, whatever
happens to me. It is possible, too, that before very long we shall
find game enough, and then you think that you would have a
chance of recovery, don’t you?’

He kept his word all through the subsequent long and critical
month.

For the first few days, I still imagined that I could be of some
help in hauling or pushing the sledge through the slush of snow;
but it was not long before I had to recognize that as an illusion,
and all that I could do then was to stumble on in front, in the hope
of being able to trample a bit of a track for the dogs, perhaps even
of discovering a better way, anything as long as I was not a burden.

ioi

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

However, I could not walk far in that dreadful going, and it was
not long before I found myself unable to keep upright without the
support of the sledge. Often I fell in the slush and was unable to
get to my feet by myself, so that I lay in the icy mush until
Iver came up and was able to help me to my feet. It was dread¬
ful wanting to walk and not having the strength to do so.

A week later I had to give up attempting to manage by myself.
I could no longer keep on my feet and was compelled to increase
Iver’s and the dogs’ labour by adding my weight to what they
were already scarcely able to drag through the dreadful slush of
brash, snow and water, which persisted throughout June. How¬
ever, I could still wield the whip as I sat on the sledge’s load, and
use my tongue to get the dogs to pull their best. But soon even
that became too much for me, and when one day I fainted, I had
no choice but to lie down on the sledge and let Iver put a rope
round me and lash me on top of the load like a bundle, to prevent
my falling off when the sledge rocked and swayed in the bottomless
slush.

That was a blow and, as a veteran sledger who knew more than
a thing or two, I ought to have felt ashamed, but I was so ill that
I scarcely noticed what Iver did for me, how he shoved an anorak
in under my head, when the sledge was bumping on rough ice, or
how he wasted time and effort in finding the easiest going so that
I should not suffer too much.

The dogs also had a hard time of it, and their strength dwindled
with every day that passed. Slush and hunger can take the stuffing
out of even the strongest dog, and it was long since any of ours
had been strong.

The dreadful slush with which we had to contend all through
June was also the poor dogs’ greatest torment. Whenever the
sledge stuck, as happened quite often, they crawled up on to it
so as to get away from the intolerable, icy slush, and then they
shook themselves, as is the way of dogs, and huddled close to
me, soaking me, if I was not soaked already. This I usually was,
for now and again t had to get off the sledge in order to lighten it

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SLEDGING TN SLUSH

when it was hopelessly stuck. Then I would sit on a ice-hummock
or lie on the driest bit of ice to be found, while Iver stood up to
his waist in the slush and struggled with the sledge; sometimes
digging it out, baling slush out of the hole in which the sledge was
stuck, or else trying to beat or tramp the stuff down so that it
would bear the weight of sledge and dogs for the short moment
necessary to get it out of the hole, calling and shouting to the
dogs to pull and go on pulling.

Then, having got the sledge out of the hole in which it had
stuck and halted it at a place where it did not sink in too deep,
Iver would come back for me, always gay and cheerful, despite
the labour and the water that poured off him. He would help me
on to my feet and support me as, together, we stumbled to the
sledge, on to which I dropped heavily and let myself be lashed to
it once again. So, by degrees, we moved on once more to the
accompaniment of howls and cries, and the labour of it was so
great that Iver fell silent to save his strength, and the dogs gasped
with the effort.

Day after day, we sledged down the coast, a dreary coast
without character, a low, flat glacier stretching for mile upon
mile. The weather, too, was dark and dirty. Often there was
snow, either large, wet flakes or fiercely driving drift snow, brought
with the wind which came hooting off the glacier in a tardy
unwelcome greeting from the bitterly cold interior. Nor were we
spared mist and drizzle. Thus, for a month, we had slush under
us, dampness around us, and dark clouds full~of snow or rain
hanging low above us; moisture and water above and below,
moisture and water everywhere.

Luckily, we still had some provisions left — pemmican and a
little tea, a few handfuls of biscuits, and that was our only comfort
during those long laborious days. All day we longed for the moment
when the pemmican could be served, unfortunately only half
cooked in order to save precious fuel, but delicious even so. Our
hunger was great and growing greater with every day, while our
daily ration that had been small enough in the days of abundance,

103

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

when the sledge was laden with food, had been more than halved
when we began the return journey.

I longed for food but ate little, for the fat pemmican nauseated
me and I could scarcely swallow a mouthful. I offered my ration
to Iver, but he would not touch it. ‘We’ll save that,’ he said, 'till
you recover and have to be fed up again.’

Well, perhaps there might be something in that, but there did
not seem much prospect of my ever getting fit again or requiring
to be fed up. I was then losing consciousness more and more
frequently.

Meanwhile, Iver struggled on down the coast, straining every
muscle to get the sledge along, and every sense so as not to miss
seeing the least hint of game or sign of the most northerly of the
caches the Danmark expedition had made for the use of Mylius-
Erichsen and his companions on their return journey.

His efforts brought results in the shape of geese to put in the
pot, and then, at last, the cache, the size of which came as an
unpleasant surprise and made us fear for the future. Two pounds
of pemmican, the same of kail and forcemeat and a pound of
salami was all the cache contained. It was quite incomprehensible.
I told Iver to have another look, that there must be more food in
a cache made for famished slcdgcrs. What we had found would
have been little more than a snack for Mylius and his two com¬
panions, just enough to exacerbate their hunger. But there was
no more, and we wondered and became more depressed than
ever, for though we had not been able to find out before
we left Copenhagen what these caches were supposed to
contain, we had reckoned that there would be proper provisions
at the places marked ‘Depot’ on the official map of the Danmark
Expedition.

The string of places thus marked had looked so reassuring on
the map, even though the man who had made the most northerly
of them had warned me that wc would not be able to find them,
and, for that reason, had refused to tell me what was in them.
Even so, we had hoped that they would contain provisions if we

104

SLEDGING IN SLUSH

ever found them, as we did. The contents of the two most
northerly ones were ominously small.

Luckily, our disappointment was partially offset by two geese
which Iver shot near the cache. But they did not last long. Our
provisions were dwindling rapidly, and our dog food was almost
all gone. There were a lot of geese where we were, and Iver would
no doubt have been able to shoot more, if we had dared stay
there for a couple of days — but we did n6t. We had to continue
on our way without loss of time, southwards along the coast to
Lamberts Land, which I hoped to be able to reach before it was
too late. From there Iver might possibly make his way back to
the ship alone, provided his nerve held.

So Iver struggled on down the coast, forcing the reluctant
dogs through the slush of water and snow, pressing the sledge
along while I lay lashed to it, a helpless dead weight that could
neither fall off when the sledge was about to capsize in the slush,
nor throw myself off when the fever was upon me.

Despite all his toil and exertions, Iver had always time to
shove something soft under my head when it was aching most, and,
while in a semi-coma, I often saw him bent over me, smiling,
though a little anxiously: ‘Bit better now, isn’t it?’ And in my
stupor I would hear him talking to the dogs, urging them on with
the most appalling threats or trying to entice them with fair
promises of masses of food when wc reached our journey’s end.
He was always earnest and affectionate with Girly: Tull now,
Girly, pull all you can. We’ll get our skipper to land all right.’

It was hard sledging all down that dreary coast. Summer had
come, and the first half of June was already past; the sun shone
bleakly once the wind had hunted the clouds from the sky, but
it did have some warmth, enough to be felt at least. The snow
melted rapidly and gradually the slush disappeared, leaving clear
water lying on the ice and collecting in shallow lakes in.all the
dips. The ice was rendered brittle by the sun and broke beneath
the press of wind and tide. Long channels were formed among the
drifting floes, where bright little wavelets glistened gaily and seals

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

broke the surface to turn their bullet shaped heads and watch us
with big, round and remarkably expressive eyes. But always they
were out of range — worse luck.

One day, during a halt, a bear came. I saw it quite close, but
all I could do was to shout to Iver, who was hunting a seal. Then,
with considerable difficulty, I managed to cut Grimrian loose
from the sledge and hoped that he might keep the bear at bay.
But it all went wrong. Grimrian was brave enough when he was
one of a pack, but he did not like the idea of going for a bear alone.
It would, perhaps, have been a fairly dangerous thing for him to
have done; but I, at least, would gladly have exchanged thin
little Grimrian for a bear. He began bravely enough, but he
changed his mind as soon as he discovered that he was alone, .and
instead of going for the bear and halting it, sought safety with
Iver. Iver dropped to his knee to steady his aim and took a long
shot at the fleeing bear. He hit it in the back and wounded it
mortally, though without killing it immediately; so, with blood
streaming from its wound, the bear dragged itself out to the
sparkling water and flung itself in, making the spray spurt up
like a golden halo round what could have been our salvation. The
bear went down less than a hundred yards from land, watched
in amazement by two inquisitive seals who were unable to under¬
stand their arch-enemy’s strange capers as its life ebbed out.

Bitterly disappointed, Iver sat down by the edge of the land-ice
and gazed long at the water, while I, on the sledge, hid my face
in my arms. If only I had seen the bear one minute earlier, or if
Grimrian had been the dog we had always thought him and not
an accursed coward, or if Iver’s bullet had struck just an inch
further forward — then we could have halted for some days and
enjoyed the warmth of the sun, while we ate ourselves back to
strength and health on the juicy bear’s meat that was now drifting
out to -sea, and which would have fed our dogs and given them
fresh courage and strength.

But that was not to be: instead of rest and enjoyment, the nod I
gave Iver meant ‘We must get on, my friend. We must get to

106

SLEDGING IN SLUSH

Lamberts Land as quickly as we can, for your sake.’

The second cache contained no more food for us than the first,
and we wondered more and more. There was some dog food,
however, and we were glad for the dogs’ sake, perhaps for ours
too. During the last couple of weeks, we had shared our pemmican
with the dogs, so now they could reciprocate by letting us have a
little of their food. But even that hope was dashed, for, however
hungry and exhausted the dogs were, they would not eat the
strange ersatz stuff that dog food was. They just sniffed at it and
left it lying, while they roamed round in the hope of finding
something better. And they were lucky, for they sniffed out one
of the Danmark Expedition’s meat caches, meat and bacon three
or four years old, the stench of which penetrated miles across
land and sea. But the dogs liked it better than the artificial
product.

Having failed to get the bear and being reduced to only nine
ounces of pemmican a day — the largest permissible ration if we
Were to have any hope of coming through — we could not afford
to stop and rest and enjoy what little there was to enjoy — the
arrival of summer. Not that that was really so little.

There was a rippling of water on all the mountain sides; water
was rushing in all the. beds of the torrents, and greenery was
sprouting and growing on the southern slopes. It was lovely. But
along the shore, all this rippling water ate great chunks out of the
ice and made progress so difficult that a boat would have been a
better means of transport than a sledge. The dogs were almost
frightened out of their wits, when Iver drove them out into the
big lakes that we sometimes had to cross. On occasion, they had
to swim in front of the sledges, while Iver pushed from behind
and I lay on top of the load being splashed by icy water that
cooled my fevered body.

Progress was most laborious, but Iver knew what was at stake
and still seemed possessed of Herculean strength, so that he
managed it — how, I shall never understand. However, as the
slush gradually turned to water and much of it ran out to sea, the

107

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

going did become a little easier and, before June was out, we
sledged into Dijmphna Sound which to us frugal beinp seemed
a land flowing with milk and honey.

The ice was good for sledging. We passed only a few channels,
but seals gambolled and eider ducks frolicked in them, perhaps
not in such numbers that you could truly speak of a wealth of
animal life, but enough to seem many to us who had certainly
not been spoiled where game was concerned. We also saw seals
on the ice, on to which they had crawled from the icy water to
bask in the warm sun. There were relatively fresh bear’s tracks
here and there, and gulls were nesting on the mountain side. The
birds left their nests and dived at us or the dogs, uttering shrill
cries in answer to Iver’s shouts of joy. The dogs recovered their
spirits, barking a bit and looking up at the gulls, snapping at any
that were particularly obtrusive, and they even began to raise
their drooping tails. Snow buntings chirruped gaily on the green
land as they hopped from stone to stone. It seemed a good place
to be.

It was light all round the clock and, at midnight, the sun
shone in the north, a flaming, orange-coloured blaze that lent
glowing colour to the dark mountains. It was the northern summer,
and we realized that we Would have to halt for a short while to
let more thaw-water run off the ice, as it must before we could
continue. But we also realized that there would be no continuing
our journey unless we could get game and plenty of it. Either
that, or find the cache the Danmark Expedition had made some¬
where or other along that coast.

We had no knowledge of what the cache contained. If it only
held a few pounds of tinned food, like the two previous ones, it
would be of little interest to us, for we had almost no food left
and nothing for the dogs except the flesh of one of their number,
which we shot immediately we made camp at this land of milk
and honey. If we found the cache, the three surviving dogs would
also feel that we believed in, or at least hoped for, better times.

When Iver had pitched the tent and made it as habitable as

108

SLEDGING IN SLUSH

possible, I was not even able to hobble there with his help, but
had to crawl on hands and knees. When I reached it, I collapsed
into my sleeping bag, so breathless and giddy with pain and
exhaustion that I was convinced that that place was my journey’s
end. I could go on no longer without, at the very least, plenty of
food and a long rest

As far as I was concerned, it mattered little whether the end
came there or a few score miles further on, for I had given up all
hope of ever getting back to the ship with its food, rest and,
perhaps, medicine to help my scurvy. That hope had been
bumped out of me during the many hours when I had Iain lashed
on top of the loaded sledge, a mere extra burden for Iver and the
poor dogs.

Iver and I were quite frank about it all, for I had to explain to
him the way he should go, and what he should do in order to
have a chance of getting back, when, sooner or later, the dread
hour came and he found himself all alone in that vast wilderness.

After all, it was I who had landed him, a man with no Arctic
experience, in this adventure, and so I must do whatever I could
to get him out of it safe and sound. Every evening I wrote in my
journal an account of the scurvy’s ravages in my body, and I made
Iver promise to take that journal back with him, if it was the only
thing he could save, for my description of my illness and its
progress would be his only proof that I had died a natural death.

Iver refused to believe that things were as bad as that, and
while we camped at Mt Mallemuk, he was out hunting all the
time, no matter what the weather, in sunshine and calm, in mist,
rain and storm; while I dozed in the tent with a rifle within
reach in case a bear came my way, which none ever did. The
hours were long while Iver was away, and anxious too, for so
much might happen to him.

He could be gone for hours at a stretch, but he never returned
to the tent without a hare, a gull, a black guillemot or something.
There was not much to be got, for the seals were shy and on the
alert, whether they were in the sea or on the ice. What bear tracks

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

he saw were days old. and, though there were many tracks of
musk-oxen on land, he never caught a glimpse of one, no matter
how far he went or how much he searched.

One day he returned sooner than usual and it was obvious
that something exciting had happened, for I heard him shouting
and yodelling a long way off, but it was not till he was quite near
the tent that I realized that he must have found the cache at last.

Beaming with delight, he assured me that it was a big cache, a
whole provision case, full rations for two men for a fortnight, an
incredible quantity of food for men who were famished. Now we
should really be able to eat our fill for several days — if the
contents had not been ruined by water which, unfortunately, was
possible.

Iver had not opened the cache; he had wanted us to share the
pleasure and had just hurried back to me with the good news. He
was trembling with excitement as he helped me out of the tent
and down to the shore, and he talked incessantly all the time he
was harnessing the dogs to the sledge. He sang and laughed as he
drove them down to the coast, promising them every imaginable
delight. And he kept assuring me that now I should soon get well
and fit again, and made me as comfortable as he could on the
sledge. ‘Wait till you see the cache,’ he said, ‘It’s a splendid sight.
That in itself will make you better.’

And it was a splendid sight, though perhaps not as magnificent
as Iver had made out. Before we ever got there and Iver had
opened the tin box, the smell was enough to tell me, who sat
waiting on the slope at some little distance, that the contents were
not in as good a state as Iver had hoped.

There had been a little hole in the tin box, and water had made
its way in, spoiling biscuits and chocolate so that they looked
unappetizing and tasted worse. The sugar had melted and some
of the tins had rusted through and their contents were far from
fragrant. Yet, in our famished state, such a find fully justified our
mad joy. We had not seen so much food for ages.

That evening, refusing to heed the admonishing voice of caution,

no

SLEDGING IN SLUSH

we indulged in a regular feast. Iver received a pound tin of
lobscouse as a finder’s reward, and, though I would have liked to
have had meat, we both thought that porridge would be best for
me. The oatmeal was very musty, but we thought it edible; so
Iver cooked me porridge, and it smelt almost delicious in our
little tent. We ate and enjoyed our meal in devout silence,
savouring each spoonful with gusto, and when we finished up
with coffee and a piece of mouldy chocolate, we could wish for
nothing more.

On such an auspicious occasion, we never gave a thought to
scurvy or other infirmities, and, besides, I did feel as though I was
beginning to get better. My fainting fits were not nearly so bad;
in fact, I had not fainted once since we had rounded Mt Mallemuk
and found that lovely camping place. Thus, having a small supply
of provisions again and my seeming to be better, we felt that we
could look at the immediate future without much anxiety. Luckily,
one is optimistic.

The days passed, one like another, and the weather was the
only thing that changed. Sometimes it was fine, with high sky
and warm sun that lured forth buzzing insects, but mostly it was
blustery, raw and misty. Iver was out every day, hunting to get
food for his sick companion and in the hope of dropping some
bigger game, which would provide meat for the dogs and give us
some to take with us when we continued our journey. This,
however, he never got, and we had to be content with gulls, not
so many as we would have liked perhaps but on the average one
a day. It seems that those gulls were what I needed most, for day
by day I felt my strength returning, and day by day I could see
the livid patches on my body becoming smaller and less blue. As
the days passed, I became more and more convinced that the
miracle of which I had not dared dream ten days before was
actually happening and I was recovering.

We thought we would move our camp nearer to the open water
in the hope of getting some bigger game, bear or seal, and, when
Iver had struck the tent and I was sitting on the sleeping bag

in

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

waiting for him to come and help me down to the shore, I had the
presumptious idea that I would try to walk by myself.

I scarcely dared try, for it would have been a bitter blow, if
the improvement I felt had not really made me any stronger; but
in the end I plucked up my courage, heaved myself off the
sleeping bag with the help of two ski-sticks, got to my feet with
difficulty — and stood, a thing I had not done for over three
weeks.

I was so delighted that I threw one of the ski-sticks away, took
a couple of steps and then let go of the other, stood for a moment,
wavering, without any support, and then took step after step,
calling out delightedly: ‘look Iver, look — I can walk!’ Iver’s
delight was as great as mine. He came hurrying up and wanted
to put an arm right round my shoulders to prevent my falling,
but there was no need to support me: with a great effort, I kept
myself upright and walked right down to the shore and sat down
on the sledge, without help.

I believe that so quick a recovery after such a violent attack of
scurvy was almost miraculous, nor can I think of any other
explanation than the curative properties of the twelve or so gulls
that Iver shot out of the sky for me. I ate every particle of meat,
sucked down the oil, and even managed to swallow the guts. The
meat was hardly cooked at all, for we had to economize with
paraffin as with everything else, and I had to cut it into tiny bits
that I could swallow whole, for my teeth and gums still ached
like abscesses.

On we drove, and each time the sledge stopped I had tc get
off and make sure that it was true that I really could stand and
walk. Iver and I were gayer than we had been for a very long
time. Wc sang and we laughed so that the mountains rang with
it, while our four remaining dogs shared in our elation, raising
drooping tails and even wagging them a little.

Eighteen days after coming to Mt Mallemuk with myself
lying on the sledge half-dead, we left our camp under the high
mountain and went out on to the ice that now was almost bare of

>13

SLEDGING IN SLUSH

snow. I was then able to do my share of the hardest jobs, and,
despite the hard toil and the fact that our clothes were sopping
wet both day and night, I became stronger every day and was
soon as strong as I had ever been. For that I had to thank my
wonderful comrade, Iver, who had toiled superhumanly to bring
the sledge and me to a place where we could camp for the summer.

What I admired most, perhaps, and what, after all these years,
I still think of with gratitude and joy, was his continual endeavour
to cheer me up. He always had something cheerful and encourag¬
ing to say when he saw that I needed it. His eyes kept on. mine, as
he watched to see whether he could help or mitigate the physical
or mental stress that I was under. I am sure, too, that just as he
helped with word or deed whenever I needed it most, so he never
for a second failed me in his thoughts. And yet he knew full well
what my illness and its probable outcome could come to mean to
him, that it could put upon him the heaviest burden that can be
laid on a person’s shoulders: the chilling, paralyzing horror of
utter loneliness.

113

CHAPTER XI

WATER AND HUNGER

Water on the ice — Sledge-boat — Is mildew a vegetable? — Lack of
game on land and sea — Attempt to catch sandhoppers — Lamberts Land

in sunlight

We had expected arduous conditions on the return journey and
we had had them; but now that I had got rid of my scurvy and
was again fit enough to take what toil and disappointments might
await us, we became over-optimistic. There were again two of us
to deal with things, and we felt that nothing could befall us that
would be more difficult to overcome, than what we had already
survived.

It was now summer; the sun was shining and the worst of the
water had run off the ice. With two of us to hunt, wc felt that we
could not continue to be as unlucky there as we had been. Now
there were two to share the work and the labour with the sledge,
two to back one another up in any emergency and in the hours of
bitter disappointment, two to do and bear all that which for the
last five or six weeks Iver had had to do and bear alone. Thus, it
was no wonder that we were optimist ic as wc left Mt Mallcmuk
and resumed our snail’s progress towards the south. All was well,
and we were convinced that the worst was over, for what lay
ahead could not possibly be so hard as things had been, when
Iver was struggling alone and I hung between life and death.

As it was summer, we expected to have to contend with water:
there would be large lakes of thaw water on the ice-floes and broad
leads between the floes themselves; while along the coast, the
tides would have made big fissures in the ice, which would not be
easy to cross. On land, wild rivers would be rushing down from
the glaciers of the highlands and from the huge snow-drifts
melting under the rays of the sun and yielding masses of water.
Things would be difficult; but it should amount to no more than

WATER AND HUNGER

a little delay here and there, and we were well accustomed to
that. Besides, we had time in hand, for we had long since resigned
ourselves to the fact that we could not possibly reach Alabama
before she had to leave her winter harbour.

But then there was our other enemy, hunger; that might be
really difficult to overcome. We still had a few provisions on the
sledge: eight or ten pounds of pemmican, which could be made
to go quite a long way, if we ate no more than we had been doing
for the last month — half a pound a day. And we also had a few
handfuls of biscuits and two tiny tins of tea, the latter our only
luxury. But we also had what was of much greater importance
than the little food we carried on the sledge, the Danmark
Expedition’s caches further down the coast.

From now on, we knew for certain where those caches were
and what they contained, though we had had to travel all the
way to Mt Mallemuk to learn this from a letter left for Mylius-
Erichsen, which we had found there in the cache. Of course, some
of the provisions could have been ruined by water, but there
would always be something we could eat. What was edible did
not depend so much on the extent to which it was impaired as on
how hungry we were. Famished men are not fastidious.

And if everything went wrong and all failed us that we in our
excessive optimism felt could not possibly fail, we still had our
three wretched dogs; they were thin enough, in fact they were
horrible sights, but they must have some flesh on their bones.

All in all, the outlook seemed relatively bright as we left
Mt Mallemuk.

We lost much of our optimism, however, as soon as we came
out into the fjord and had to spend a long time searching east
and west for ways across the many leads that had been sprung in
the covering of ice, that before had been so firm. It almost looked
as though the ice were in full break-up, a possibility we had never
imagined that we need consider.

We had to put on a bit of a spurt if the ice were not to fail us
entirely. On we struggled, and one way or another got across the

i*5

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

lanes. Often we coolly ferried ourselves on a fragile little ice-floe
just large enough to carry the sledge, ourselves and the terrified,
whimpering dogs, which hated all that water as much as they had
the deep slush.

Only once did one of these ice-ferries fail us, and then it was
nearly fatal. Iver was already on the floe with the sledge and dogs,
but luckily I was still standing on stouter ice, for all at once the
ferry-flow broke into pieces. Exerting all my strength, I was able
to hold the front of the sledge against more or less solid ice, while
Iver rescued our precious equipment piece by piece. We saved
everything that would float, but the rest sank.

Half an hour after the accident wc were standing beside a pile
of sopping things surveying the damage. Most things wc were able
to dry; but our mouldy biscuits were done for, though we squeezed
the salt water out of them, steeped them in sweet water from a
pool on the icc, and tried to dry them over the Primus. The result
was not what we had hoped. The biscuits tasted of salt, mustiness
and rancid butter, and also slightly of paraffin. It was filthy, but
we ate them — and suffered for it for some time. Food must not
be wasted, and however dreadful to taste, there must have been
some nourishment in them.

The weather was against us. The temperature was above
freezing, so that water was simply spouting out of the ice. And
then there was the mist, continuous mist that made it almost
impossible to find our way through the innumerable leads and
channels, all of which seemed to run athwart the direction which
we hoped was south — for our one and only compass was one of
the things we had lost when the ice-floe ferry collapsed.

Progress was very slow, and this was where we had hoped to be
speeding southwards as though with seven-league boots! Our
provisions diminished until they were little more than an illusion.
The dogs were scarcely able to walk, far less pull, and Girly lay
on the sledge unable even to stand, quite exhausted by hard work,
hunger and the water. It was pitiful to see.

If only we could have got a bear, all would have changed quickly

u6

WATER AND HUNGER

for the better; but we never did, though we saw lots of tracks along
the broad leads, where they had been hunting the seals which
gambolled in the cold water full of the joy of Spring and gazed at
us inquisitively. Iver insisted that he could see them laughing at
us and that they deliberately kept just out of range.

Again hunger was tormenting us. The dogs too were very
hungry, especially Grimrian who for some considerable time had
been practising the art of living on his own and others’ excrement.
He disdained nothing that was edible — except the salty mouldy
biscuits which we had eaten.

We began to talk of shooting a dog to get a little meat and to
give the other two dogs some bones to chew on, but we kept
hoping for game and let them continue to live and suffer, in the
perhaps somewhat vain hope of better times to come.

For some time, I had noticed that Iver kept fingering the dogs
when they came to us for solace and comfort, as they did when we
stopped to rest, and how, now and again, he would nod thought¬
fully to himself after running his fingers searchingly down one of
their spines.

I did not understand the meaning of these strange caresses,
and was greatly surprised when, in reply to my question, I was
told that, though Bjorn was very thin, you could still feel a little
fat on him. For a moment I stared at Iver uncomprehendingly,
but then I realized what he meant and I was so taken aback that
I was just about to curse him for a cannibal, but stopped myself
in time, for Girly happened to be on my lap, looking at me with
eyes glowing with faithful devotion.

I shrank from the idea, but then I began patting my faithful
dog’s head with one hand, while the other sub-consciously ran
down her spine fingering it, just as I had seen Iver’s do on Bjorn.

I could not feel any fat, just the hard vertebrae. Then Iver
showed me where he thought he could feel fat and, after that,
when the occasion offered, we both unblushingly fingered the
dogs’ spines and tried to persuade ourselves that there was still a
little fat on the poor animals which thought we were caressing them!

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

There was certainly no fat left on Girly, nor strength either, and
she died. It was a miserable reward for all her toil and faithfulness,
and for the great ability she had shewn as leader-dog; yet, though
1 grieved to think that Girly had died of hunger and exhaustion,
I was glad that she had died when she did, for that saved me
from having to eat the dog I had been most fond of out of all the
many sledge-dogs I, as an explorer, had had on my various
journeys.

Despite all the water surrounding us, we eventually came to
the place where the next cache was supposed to be. Unfortunately,
this was guarded by a broad tidal channel, so broad as only to be
negotiated in a boat. Wc constructed one by wrapping all our
possessions in the tent and lashing the bundle to the sledge.

First, we experimented cautiously in a shallow lake to see
whether the sledge had buoyancy enough to cany the two of us;
and having found that, at a pinch, it would, wc tied the two dogs
to the sledge and pushed off with Iver lying on his belly on the
right-hand side, with his legs trailing, and I in a similar position
on the left.

There was considerable risk in entrusting ourselves and our
goods to such a rickety craft and we were loath to do it; but it
was the only means of getting across. We were continuously having
to tread water, as the sledge heeled over to one side or tire other,
but in the end we felt ground beneath our feet and hauled our
sledge-boat safely ashore, proud of our invention and our courage
— and feeling much more confident about the future. Now we
could face smaller stretches of open sea with comparative equani¬
mity. Also wc must soon be coming to a cache, where there
should be a fortnight’s provisions for two men. That was a
wonderful thought to us, for all wc had left was two pounds of
pemmican, a tiny tin of tea and two emaciated dogs, even though
Iver insisted that they were not just skin and bone since, as he
thought, he could still feel fat on their spines.

We found the cache and suspected at once that all was not well.
The tin box was rusted and lying by the waterside, where small

WATER AND HUNGER

waves from the tidal channel could lap over it. It did not look
promising, and when we opened it, it was a dreadful sight that
met our eyes. Everything that could become mouldy had done so.
Things were so covered with mould that you could see nothing
else, so thick with cilia that they were like small hairy animals.
Some of the tins had rusted through and noisome vapours oozed
from the holes.

We turned and twisted the lumps of mould, broke off little
bits to see if they were mildewed right through, as unfortunately
they were; and we had already decided to scrap all that was
mildewed, when Ivcr suddenly said: ‘Wait a bit! You’ve often
said that we need vegetables. Isn’t mould also a kind of vegetable?’

I doubted whether it was, but it certainly was a possibility, so
we cleaned the mildewed lumps of the worst of the mould and
ate them. But they did not altogether agree with us.

Nevertheless, there were things there to delight two hungry
men. The cache contained enough food for perhaps eight days, if
we were careful; and then there was also a full tin of paraffin that
we found further up the shore. That was grand, for it meant that
we could use our Primus, if we shot anything big — as we soon
would — and wanted to fry a steak.

The mountain slopes that faced south were relatively fertile,
and we roamed quite far inland in the hope of finding musk-oxen
in one of the larger glens. These were furrowed by deep river¬
beds, filled to overflowing with the milky water that foamed down
off glacier and snows and went swirling out to sea.

These torrents were difficult to cross and also dangerous, for
we could not see bottom through the milky water and so had no
idea how deep they were. Some were so deep that we had to turn
with water foaming round our waists and look for another and,
we hoped, better ford. The water was also so piercingly cold that
the muscles in our legs and thighs contracted into knots of cramp,
the pain of which was almost intolerable. However, we would
have gladly accepted the cold and the cramp, the pain and the
danger, if only the mountain slopes had granted us a sight of the

”9

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

musk-oxen which had covered the muddy valley floor with a
complicated pattern of hoof marks, shewing where they had
wandered to and fro as they grazed themselves fat on the grass
and deposited droppings that could not have been old.

There were also considerable quantities oi hare’s excrement, yet
though we walked the country for three days we never saw the
white glint in the landscape by which the hare betrays its presence
in summertime. Even ptarmigan were so scarce that we only got
two to reward us for all our toil in that trackless land of hills and
glaciers. After that we gave up. Land animals were apparently
even more difficult to see and to get than sea animals.

When, weary and exhausted, we returned to camp after all
those hours of fruitless trudging and searching, we saw seals in
the tidal channels, but unfortunately they were all so far off as to
be out of range. Iver exclaimed angrily. ‘Do you see that beast
out there? God help me, but it’s grinning at us.’ It almost looked
as though it was, and we promised to avenge ourselves in the
morning.

One night, fortune smiled on us for a fleeting moment. We
were roused by an appalling commotion outside, close to the tent:
howls and yelps and roars and hisses, and there, a couple of yards
from the tent, stood a bear looking in amazement at our two
wretched dogs, which were tethered beside the tent door.

We dived for our rifles, but the bear was quicker than we, and
by the time we were ready to shoot it had already reached the
tidal channel and was beyond our reach, hurrying across the ice
in long, low bounds, comical to watch if you were full and satisfied,
but a sorrowful sight when hunger was gnawing at your inside.

That was Grimrian’s fault. He was so inclined to try and satisfy
his hunger by eating rope and gnawing at wood that we had
taken our rifles into the tent to protect them from his attentions.
If we had not done that — and it was the first time we had — the
bear could not possibly have escaped and we would have feasted
for many a day. Alas, Grimrian, you little knew what your greed
cost you and us that night.

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WATER AND HUNGER

Hour after hour, day and night, we walked to and fro along the
tidal channel watching for seal. And we saw seal break the smooth
surface of the water, saw the glistening drops of water roll down
their round, human heads — we whistled as alluringly as we
could, and the seal remained stationary in the water, listening to
the unknown sounds, and we took aim with the utmost care and
despatched our bullet with a heart-felt wish that this one might
at last reach its goal. Each time, however, the seal vanished,
seemingly unhurt. We could not understand it, for we usually
were able to shoot straight. It was conceivable that the rifles had
received a bump on the rough journey that had moved the sights;
yet when we shot at a small stone as a target, we hit it every time.
There was nothing wrong with the sights.

What then was wrong? It was as though the seals were
bewitched and impervious to bullets, which we could almost see
entering their heads and yet not killing them.

Hour after hour, day after day, we hunted those bewitched
animals with the lovely human eyes, and kept sending our bullets
across the water at the heads that, in the olden days, made sailors
swear that they had seen ferocious mermen, seductive mermaids
or other strange creatures that terrified their superstitious minds.

. But we never got a seal.

In the end, we solved the mystery, and though it boded us no
good, it at least showed that there was nothing supernatural
about it: it was simply that the seals did not yet have enough
fat on them to keep them afloat after they were shot, so that we
were never able to recover them.

I should have thought of that, of course; and so I might, if I
had not been too hungry to reason or think clearly. As it was, we
did not realize the bitter truth until one day we saw a seal’s head
actually crushed by a bullet, so that blood and blubber floated on
the smooth surface, forming a dirty patch round the seal’s head.
We were jubilant, for now at last we had got a seal and would be
able to eat our fill. But the next moment, our jubilation turned

121

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

to horror, for the seal floated only for a fraction of a second and
then it sank like a stone.

After that we knew, and we also knew that our lives were at
stake, for it was obvious that we could not afford to wait for the
seals to grow fat. We must, therefore, without wasting time, try
to reach a place where we might find land game, or else stake
everything on an attempt to get to the next cache, a good seventy
miles further south, hoping that it was still in existence.

We were now critically short of food, for all we had left was a
little pemmican, one tiny tin of tea and the two dogs, which
certainly had not a shred of fat on their thin tortured bodies.

Before we continued on our arduous way, we wanted to try and
salvage one of our seals which had sank in some ten feet of water.
For a whole day we dragged for it, with no other result than that
we became soaking wet and caught some sand-hoppers. That
gave us a crazy idea, that we might be able to catch enough to
give us a meal of sorts for a day’s hard work; so we sacrificed the
last bit of Girly for bail, fastening it to a shirt which we lowered
into the water, and then carefully watched the sand-hoppers as
they swarmed round the tit-bit. As soon as there were a lot of
them within the compass of the shirt, we carefully pulled it up
towards the surface, yet, no matter how careful we were, the
sand-hoppers always discovered our foul purpose and the next
instant were gone. We tried, lime after time, but at the end of
five or six hours’ fishing, all we had got was half a jugful of sand-
hoppers, which grated between our teeth and tasted revolting.
They had as little effect on our hunger as a snowball on the fires
of hell.

After that we gave up fishing for sand-hoppers and made off
southwards with Bjorn and Grimrian securely tied to the sledge,
so that there should be no chance of their escaping their ultimate
destiny, which was to be killed and eaten.

We struggled on as best we could, toiling till we ached in every
joint. We jumped the narrow leads and hauled the sledge over;
we ferried across the broader channels on a piece of ice or paddled

iaa

WATER AND HUNGER

across, lying on our sledge-boat with our legs in the water. Often
we had to jump off into the water and stand on the bottom, to
prevent the sledge-boat capsizing.

We managed it, but it was a laborious and appallingly slow
business relative to our microscopic store of provisions. We were
sopping wet from the moment we started sledging in the evening,
until the warm sun stood high in the heavens the next morning
and we stopped our all but hopeless labours. Then we wrung the
water from our clothes and crawled into soaking sleeping bags to
get some sleep, while we waited for the cold of night to lessen the
flood of water rushing across the ice and enable us to move on
again.

We toiled on across the ice a little to the north of Lamberts
Land, where Mylius-Erichsen and Hueg-Hagen had succumbed
‘twelve miles off the glacier in the middle of the fjord/ as Jurgen
Bronlund had described it. But there was no glacier wall to be
seen there. The inland ice did come thrusting out there, between
Lamberts Land and a mountain a little farther north, but it was
in an even stream of ice that merged imperceptibly with the sea-
ice, so that we were quite unable to identify the spot Jorgen
Bronlund had described as ‘off the glacier.’ There was no glacier
wall. However, when seen in deceptive moonlight, as Bronlund
saw it when he left his companions in their last camp, perhaps
some eminence in the inland ice had looked like a glacier wall.

Those were just thoughts that occurred to us as we struggled
past the scene of the catastrophe in 79 Fjord, almost as near to
succumbing as Mylius-Erichsen and his two companions had
been. We were starving and exhausted, as those three had been;
but where they had been subdued by cold and darkness, we had
sparkling sunlight and relative warmth to give us a little hope.
That meant a lot; but, on the other hand, we had the water to
contend with, and that was bad.

We reached land very near Jurgen Bronlund’s grave, and, tired
though we were, we went off hunting straight away in the hope
of being able to spare one of the dogs. Iver had the double-

133

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

barrelled shot-gun with shot for one barrel and ball for the other,
and I the rifle which could only be used against bear or musk¬
oxen. We went separate ways so as to be able to cover as large an
area as possible, and for ten hours I stumbled about that hilly
country that was fertile and covered with tracks of musk-oxen
and hare.

I never saw anything edible, not a living creature. As I was on
my way back to the tent, dead tired and my mind paralyzed by
the thought that only one pound of pcmmican and two emaciated
dogs separated us from death by starvation, X heard strains
familiar from the relatively merry days, when we were sledging
across the inland ice:

‘Why should we sorrow,

Why let things annoy?

The world’s ..

What could have happened to Iver? Probably he had bagged
something and was letting his joy resound over hill and dale; yet
he had been so peculiar those last few days that I wondered
whether the combination of hunger, toil, water and disappoint¬
ment had not broken his courage and affected his brain. A cold
shiver ran down my back at the thought. I had to find out; I had
to know the reason for this gay song in the midst of our wretched¬
ness. I yodelled an answer and listened anxiously till Iver replied:
‘Twelve ptarmigan,’ and the mountains echoed the cry and flung
it back a hundredfold: twelve, twelve, twelve—-from mountain
to mountain across the whole land.

I felt so weak at the knees that I had to sit down on a stone. I
could scarcely believe that fortune at last had smiled on us. To
the mind of a famished man, twelve ptarmigan was a mass of
meat and meant not only relief, but freedom from hunger. I got
to my feet and hurried at a stiff-legged trot across the mountain to
where Iver sat on a stone, his face beaming with delight, and in
front of him lay twelve lovely ptarmigan — several days’ freedom
from gnawing hunger.

We were so happy, Iver and I. We wanted to yodel, to awaken

194

WATER AND HUNGER

the echoes and hear life around us; for the sun was shining and
when we got back to the tent, we were going to cook ptarmigan;
we would only cook them a little though, we were agreed on
that, for to have cooked them properly would have taken too
long for people in our state.

But the musk-oxen ? No, we never saw anything but their tracks,
which perhaps were years old. It was also obvious, from the
multitude of tracks, that there were hares in those parts, but we
very seldom saw one.

You can do very well on ptarmigan, however, provided there
are enough of them, and there we had twelve, inconceivable
wealth! Iver guiltily confessed that he had gobbled up the bloody
head of one of the birds, had thus had something that I had been
unable to share. And how we ate! Boiled ptarmigan is tasty, and
ptarmigan soup not to be despised. Add to that a jug of tea, and
what more could man desire? Nothing. But yes: rest and sleep,
and that too we had in more than full measure, for, being relieved
of the nervous tension of the last month, we overslept and had to
wait almost a whole day before the night’s frost made it possible
to continue. We made what use we could of the enforced wait by
going out hunting again in the sparkling sunshine. This time, the
only animals or birds we saw were a hare, which we got, and a
flapping snow-owl that we missed.

CHAPTER XII

THINGS GET WORSE

About dog's liver — Hard alternatives — One good cache and some not so
good — Poisoning — Verbal orgies — Dreaming of food—Just a little

box of tea

There was certainly nothing to keep us at Lamberts Land, so
once more we tied our two wretched dogs on top of the load and
set off, I pulling in front and Iver shoving behind. We emerged
on to the outflow of the inland ice and had to contend with all the
difficulties we now expected of it: narrow crevasses which we
could just get across, or broad gullies with foaming rivers at the
bottom, which were both difficult and dangerous to cross on ice-
bridges that the sun had rendered fragile: perhaps they would
hold, but they might also break, and then ...!

None broke, however, though wc crossed many, but we could
never help shuddering at the possibility of falling in and meeting
a certain death in the swirling icy water beneath. We got off that
fearful ice as quickly as we could and toiled on towards the large
island in the south where, according to the message left for
Mylius-Erichsen at Mt Mallemuk, we should be able to find four
or five cases of provisions, if our luck were with us. That would
allow us to stay quietly on the island, the dark mountains on
which appeared so near, though it took us four or five days to
reach it.

By the time we got to the island, the last of our tinned food had
been eaten and Iver had shot his dear Bjorn, skinned him, and,
as he put it, made him nicely fit for human consumption. It was
nice to be able to get our teeth into something, but there was not
a particle of fat on the meat, so Iver had been wrong when he
fingered Bjorn’s back and said that he could feel fat there. But
what about the liver? Were we to eat it or not? It looked really
inviting, yet we had an idea that dog’s liver was poisonous if the

>36

THINGS GET WORSE

dog had died of exhaustion, and we felt that perhaps the fact that
so many of ours had died in the autumn sledging was partially
due to the fact that the live ones had eaten the livers of their
dead fellows. It was rather a dilemma.

We tried to persuade ourselves that the poison which killed a
dog need not necessarily be dangerous to humans, at the worst
slightly harmful. We both thought that that sounded logical, yet
I was not altogether happy in my mind about it. Then I remem¬
bered that there was something about putting a silver spoon into
the pot in which anything possibly poisonous was to be cooked, so
I got out a little silver frame I always carried on me, prised out
the photograph, rubbed the frame till it was shining, and tied a
thread to it, so that we could pull it out of the pot to see whether
the liver was poisonous or not.

We felt that we really were taking all the requisite precautions,
and so we boiled the dog’s liver along with the silver frame, and
anxiously awaited the result: two pounds of meat is a tremendous
quantity when you are nearly dying of hunger.

We must have forgotten something important about colours;
but, however that was, when the liver had been cooking for about
ten minutes and we hauled the frame out to see what had hap¬
pened, we found that nothing much had changed, except that the
frame was definitely not as bright as it had been, and also it had
become slightly brown. The colour, we decided, did not look
dangerous, so we agreed that, unless the frame actually turned
green, the liver would be all right to eat.

The brown tint grew darker as the liver cooked, but the frame
did not turn green, so we ate the liver and patted ourselves on
the back at the clever way we had rescued that titbit for our
shrunken stomachs.

However, the liver was not as good as we thought, for, shortly
after we had eaten it, we fell into a heavy doze and only woke
twenty-four hours later, and then with splitting headaches. Thus,
despite our precautions, there must have been some poison in
poor Bjorn’s liver, and we made each other a solemn promise

137

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

that, when Grimrian’s hour came, we would not eat his liver.

There is not much meat on a worn-out, exhausted dog, and
what there is docs not have a nice taste; but it satisfied us more or
less and that was the main thing. However, even with the liver
and what we called marrow from the bones, the whole only
provided meagre rations for a couple of days, and then it was
Grimrian’s turn to go to the pot.

Iver shot him, and he had orders to throw the liver into the
water at once, so that we should not be tempted. There was
something I had to do in the tent, and when I had finished and
looked out to see how it was going, I saw Grimrian’s skinned
body lying on the icc, looking incredibly small and, for the first
time, handsome and appetizing, while beside it lay the liver, also
washed and appetizing.

I looked reproachfully at Ivcr, who said that he had just not
been able to bring himself to throw that lovely pink food into the
sea. Would I not do it myself?

Seeing that he had not done it, I must. Reproaching him for
his failure, I walked briskly up to the liver, raised my foot to give
it a good kick that would send it far out into the water — and
gently lowered my foot again. I then turned to Iver, whose guilty
expression had now become rather mocking.

We stood a long while looking at each other and the liver, while
we tried to persuade ourselves that tins liver, our last piece of
edible meat, could not really be harmful. We argued the point to
and fro, and that took time, but then Iver produced quite a fresh
argument: ‘Listen,’ said he, ‘Bjorn’s liver didn’t kill us, so
Grimrian’s isn’t likely to either.’

There was no contesting that, so we closed our ears to the
warning voices of common sense and caution, boiled the liver
without the silver frame and ate it. It tasted delicious, but, of
course, we should not have eaten it, for it was naturally as
poisonous as Bjorn’s and had exactly the same effect: twenty
hours of sleep and then a splitting headache.

It had other consequences which were considerably worse, but

128

THINGS GET WORSE

those we did not notice till some days later, but then we really
did have to pay for our foolishness and greed.

It was difficult to reach the site of the cache — Schnauder
Island, it was called —for there was an infinity of open channels,
rushing rivers and thaw-water lakes that we had to cross or ford.
We were sopping wet from the moment we began sledging towards
the island, to which four cases of food drew us with irresistable
force, till we were standing on it with aching limbs and swollen
ankles. The latter were the result of slipping and falling on the un¬
even but glassy ice, and of stepping into the innumerable holes that
the thaw had made in the surface, accursed, dangerous holes they
were, almost hidden beneath a cover of ice or snow, sometimes as
much as knee-deep and just large enough for a foot to go right in.

In the end, however, we reached land, wrung the water from
our clothes, flung down die traces and looked at each other
interrogatively: What now?

By that time, the last of Grimrian’s bones had been scraped
clean and smashed to let us get at the marrow, and we did not
have an ounce of food left, except for a couple of teaspoonsful of
tea. There were only three possibilities: we must eidier find the
cache, shoot something or die of starvation.

Wc at once set off along the shore, hoping that die cache might
be not far away and intact. It was all we could do to stagger along.
Iver had pains in his back and side, and his head ached with every
step he took. He had been like that for a number of days now. He
was worried and so was I, for it would be much worse having to
contend with illness then, than it had been when I was sick, bad
though that had been.

We were approaching the southern end of the island, and our
hopes had dwindled to nothing, when, at quite a distance, we saw
a square case on a shoulder of rock, a heavenly sight. We could
scarcely walk, yet the sight of that provisions case was so stimu¬
lating that we managed to keep going till we reached it. It was as
shining and whole as the day it was packed in Copenhagen, five
or six years before!

139

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

What a joyful moment that was, as we stood in the twilight at
that desolate spot, gazing at the tin case that simply shone in the
semi-darkness, as though it were illuminated from within by the
wonders it contained; a heaven-sent gift for exhausted and
famished men. There was immediate solace for all our longings,
for inside that case were provisions enough for a fortnight, perhaps
a whole month or even longer, if we were as abstemious as hunger
had taught us to be. There was all the heart could desire, except
rest. Rest we had to have, several days’ rest before we could tackle
such going again. Ivcr, in particular, needed it, for he Was so thin
that he scarcely cast a shadow, so ill that he could hardly stagger
along, his face so ravaged that I expected him to collapse at any
moment. We must rest for at least a week and gather strength,
for there might be a hard time ahead of us on the 300 miles we
had still to go before we reached Shannon Island. And the autumn
was at hand!

After the first flush of joy, doubt and anxiety raised their
heads: there should have been four or five cases, but we had only
seen one. Where were the others? We began to search and in
the gathering darkness wc found the rest of them in a sheltered
corner, or rather the remains, for some slcdgers had halted there
and sampled all the lovely food. How sated and content they must
have been! There were plenty of traces of the cache: it had been
destroyed by people who had never drought of the possibility that
others might come there later, whom the food they ruined might
have saved from dying of starvation. The cases had been burst
open and the contents scattered far and wide. Wc searched among
the stones and found individual tins with the contents apparently
intact, but we found many more which had been split with an
axe so that the dogs could eat what they contained: stew, goulash,
jam, blood pudding and such things that were never intended as
dog food.

It was men from the Danmark Expedition who had made the
cache to assist Mylius-Erichscn and his companions on their return
journey, and, naturally, people from the Expedition had every

130

THINGS GET WORSE

right to use what they liked of their own provisions without
accounting to any but their own consciences. And if it could have
helped the object of the expedition in any way, they were obviously
fully entitled to feed their dogs on food meant for people, even on
delicacies—if the dogs would eat them. But the leaders of the
JDanmark Expedition can scarcely have been justified in marking
‘cache’ at various localities on an official map, when they them¬
selves had helped to empty, or almost empty, some of those caches
before that map was even drawn. Such a thing could be mis¬
chievous. In fact, it all but killed us.

Never, even to ourselves, did we deny that the members of the
Danmark Expedition could deal with their caches and their
contents as they liked, but it was hard for famished men to find
all those split tins with mouth-watering labels and to see in the
dogs’ excrement undigested lumps of slab chocolate or biscuit
that had been thrown for the dogs to scramble for and swallowed
whole with several layers of wrapping paper, tinfoil and even string.

We hoped that the poor dogs had not had too bad stomach ache
or diarrhoea from eating all that lovely chocolate that we would
have given a year of our lives to have had; but we felt that they
had deserved the difficulties that they must have had in getting
rid of the undigested lumps that still lay scattered about the site
of the orgy, a sort of corpus delicti, an accusation against a
thoughtless man.

It was not pleasant discovering that all that food had been
wasted, and it boded ill for what we should find at the other
caches; but our delight and thankfulness for that one whole case
was so great that we quickly forgot our disappointment and,
collecting every bit of food we could find, trudged back through
the dark, cold night to the tent, where we sank on to our sleeping
bags, exhausted but happy, having sledged without interruption
for thirty-six hours.

Iver wrote in his journal: ‘Never had I thought life so glorious,
as when we sat by a little fire eating some of the food we had
found, knowing that we had enough for a fortnight!’

e

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

How we enjoyed eating! It was not that we guzzled the food.
Wc had been too long without food for that; but we carefully
measured out a day’s small ration and divided it up into a number
of little meals, which we had every few hours. Fortunately, we had
also found a tin of paraffin at the cache, so we had no need to
worry about fuel.

All was well with us, and we could wish for nothing more. Life
was glorious and as full of promise as wc of plans for the future.

After two days’ rest, I went hunting, while Iver stayed in the
tent for one more day. I went out, as though going out shooting,
with a ship’s biscuit and a lump of brawn in my pocket, and fully
convinced that I would be back before long with the quarter of a
musk-ox bumping on my back. We had seen numbers of ap¬
parently fresh tracks of musk-oxen on the island, and since that
was relatively small, we felt that they could scarcely escape our
watchful eyes. Ten hours later, I returned to the tent, dis¬
appointed, weary and sore of foot. The biscuit was eaten and the
brawn gone without my realizing that I had eaten them.

The following day, Iver went hunting. There was no restraining
him, he had to go, and off he went with a lump of brawn in his
pocket and just as convinced as I had been that he would get
something. Gaily he turned and waved to me before he disap¬
peared. But, many hours later, he returned, depressed and with
the same miserable bag as I had had — nothing. We crawled into
our sleeping bags, taking pleasure in the sun and comfort from
the sight of the food we had found — and determined that now
we would rest.

It had now become obvious that we must lie quiet in the tent
till we had recovered from the effects of eating the dogs’ liver, or
at least till these had subsided sufficiently for us to be able to walk
without every step causing us intolerable pain, for that was the
price that we had latterly been paying for our lack of will power,
when the temptation to eat the two dogs’ livers had proved too
much for us, even though we knew that they were poisonous.

Shortly after eating the second liver, when our headaches had

*38

THINGS GET WORSE

quite gone, our skin began peeling off in great flakes, and wherever
our clothes lay close to the body, we developed large, raw sores.
The worst, though, was our feet, for the horny skin of our soles
broke off, leaving sharp edges which cut like knives into the
highly sensitive new skin. Walking became a torment, and we
nibbed our sores larger with every step we took.

Our hunting continued to yield no result worth mentioning —
for what is a ptarmigan or two to famished men? — so we had
to take once more to the ice, with all its toil and thaw water.
Again we had to take our lives in our hands and ferry the sledge
across channels a hundred yards wide and more. Fate was kind
to us, however. The sledge-boat never once capsized when we
were ferrying across the deep places, and though the water chilled
us to the marrow, it did not kill us. Thus we stumbled on, on our
aching feet, hoping that the sores on our bodies would heal, even
though they were still breaking open whenever we moved. But
sores do heal, though it takes time, and as the weeks went by,
ours also healed and disappeared

The summer was almost , over. The cold of autumn set in early
that year, and winter sent its grim forerunners across land and
sea. The rivers halted their gay summer hustle to the all-engulfing
sea, which began to freeze and form a fragile path for us. It was
that path that we needed, for if we were ever to get to our journey’s
end, we must entrust our lives to this thin, but tough, crust that
formed on the sea in the raw, cold nights of later summer. But,
unfortunately, the first little autumnal storm was enough to break
up this thin ice and send it sailing out to the open sea; it needed
scarcely more than a breeze, a breath that normally we would
have considered nothing at all.

Necessity made us keep going. Our provisions were fast dis¬
appearing and, even though we were as sparing as possible,
hunger began to make itself felt again. We thought only of food,
spoke only of food. We were all too accustomed to danger and
hardship and would have taken what came with equanimity — if
only we could have got food.

133

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

In our thoughts, we relived meals we had eaten in our previous
existence, and I told lver about some of the elegant dinners which
I had attended, splendid meals, worthy of a king’s tabic. I listed
all the dishes we had eaten, lost myself in descriptions of delicacies
that perhaps only existed in my imagination. Sometimes I felt
like a cookery book and could almost taste the luxurious things I
was describing.

Iver was a good listener. At times a look of amazement came
into his eyes, and he grunted, delighted at the thought of some of
the dishes I said I had eaten in the distant past, in another life
altogether. Now and again, he interrupted me in a description of
some especially choice menu to ask if there had not been more
straightforward dishes than those I was describing. If we had
nothing else, we could at least enjoy the thought of glorious
filling food — and fed hungrier than ever.

I also tried to talk of other things, to get away from the verbal
gluttony which I had begun. I remember once, when we were
passing a mountain, big, tall and long, I gave Iver a little lesson
in geology, explaining how that mountain had come into being in
the morning of Time. Iver listened, drinking in every word, and
I was glad that, for a while at least, we had got away from our
everlasting talk of food and fine dinners; then Iver interrupted
and said ‘Yes, its all very nice and interesting to know how the
mountain came into being, but just think how lovely it would be
if it were made of porridge and wc had to cat it all.’

That was one way of looking at it!

The thought of food also invaded our dreams, when we were
not too exhausted by the labour of the day to dream at all. The
scope of those dreams was very narrow: Iver usually dreamed of
steak swimming in melted butter, but my dream was more
complicated: it was of a large dish of open sandwiches, but the
delicacies themselves were, unfortunately, hidden beneath a sheet
of newspaper. The newspaper, of course, had to be removed, and
I was kept busy all night doing so, for each time I removed a
sheet it was only to find that there was another sheet underneath.

134

THINGS GET WORSE

In the end there would be tens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of
sheets of newspaper piled in a great mountain of paper on my
right, while on my left was the dish, its delicious merrebrod still
hidden beneath yet more newspaper.

When we woke in the morning, with chattering teeth, we told
each other of the orgies we had had in the night, and so the game
was on again. By day we talked about food and by night we
dreamed of it; so that, all round the clock, we thought of nothing
but food, and only fleetingly of the risk we were taking to reach it.

It was not always easy to divide our tiny ration of food with
absolute fairness; but if we had delicious pemmican in tire pot,
there was no difficulty, for when the solemn moment came when
we considered that it had cooked long enough, we served it one
spoonful to Iver, then one to me, till the pot was empty. Some¬
times, there was a residue left on pot and lid, and then Iver
would lick the pot and I the lid, and the next time I would get
the pot and Iver the lid, and always these were left clean and
bright. We never overlooked the least speck of food.

For a long time, the only ‘luxury’ we had had was tea. We had
only a little, half an ounce perhaps, left in the little box, and this
was produced on solemn occasions of especial rejoicing or to cheer
us up at times of great adversity, such as when our provisions
were so low that we had to content ourselves with hope.

One day, or rather night, I was awakened by the effect of having
drank a great deal of water the day before, which we had done
in order to have something inside us to help make our stomachs
feel full. That avenged itself now in the middle of the night.
Getting out was not pleasant, for it was bitterly cold outside the
clammy warmth of our sleeping bags; but we had learned how to
avoid that: an empty food tin was excellent for the purpose and
one always stood by our side. That night, after my orgy of water,
I made use of my tin, and just as I lay down to sleep again, I
heard a plop, but I paid no attention to it; for it was probably
just one of the many different sounds the ice is able to make.

When I woke, I discovered to my horror that the little box of

*35

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

In our thoughts, wc relived meals we had eaten in our previous
existence, and I told lver about some of the elegant dinners which
I had attended, splendid meals, worthy of a king’s table, I listed
all the dishes we had eaten, lost myself in descriptions of delicacies
that pcihaps only existed in my imagination. Sometimes I felt
like a cookery book and could almost taste the luxurious things I
was describing.

Iver was a good listener. At times a look of amazement came
into his eyes, and he grunted, delighted at the thought of some of
the dishes I said I had eaten in the distant past, in another life
altogether. Now and again, he interrupted me in a description of
some especially choice menu to ask if there had not been more
straightforward dishes than those I was describing. If we had
nothing else, wc could at least enjoy the thought of glorious
filling food — and feel hungrier than ever.

I also tried to talk of other things, to get away from the verbal
gluttony which I had begun. I remember once, when wc were
passing a mountain, big, tall and long, I gave Iver a little lesson
in geology, explaining how that mountain had come into being in
the morning of Time. Iver listened, drinking in every word, and
I was glad that, for a while at least, we had got away from our
everlasting talk of food and fine dinners; then Iver interrupted
and said ‘Yes, its all very nice and interesting to know how the
mountain came into being, but just think how lovely it would be
if it were made of porridge and wc had to eat it all.’

That was one way of looking at it!

The thought of food also invaded our dreams, when we were
not too exhausted by the labour of the day to dream at all. The
scope of those dreams was very narrow: Iver usually dreamed of
steak swimming in melted butter, but my dream was more
complicated: it was of a large dish of open sandwiches, but the
delicacies themselves were, unfortunately, hidden beneath a sheet
of newspaper. The newspaper, of course, had to be removed, and
I was kept busy all night doing so, for each time I removed a
sheet it was only to find that there was another sheet underneath.

134

THINGS GET WORSE

In the end there would be tens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of
sheets of newspaper piled in a great mountain of paper on my
right, while on my left was the dish, its delicious smambrod still
hidden beneath yet more newspaper.

When we woke in the morning, with chattering teeth, we told
each other of the orgies we had had in the night, and so the game
was on again. By day we talked about food and by night we
dreamed of it; so that, all round the clock, we thought of nothing
but food, and only fleetingly of the risk we were taking to reach it.

It was not always easy to divide our tiny ration of food with
absolute fairness; but if we had delicious pemmican in the pot,
there was no difficulty, for when the solemn moment came when
we considered that it had cooked long enough, we served it one
spoonful to Iver, then one to me, till the pot was empty. Some¬
times, there was a residue left on pot and lid, and then Iver
would lick the pot and I the lid, and the next time I would get
the pot and Iver the lid, and always these were left clean and
bright. We never overlooked the least speck of food.

For a long time, the only ‘luxury’ we had had was tea. We had
only a little, half an ounce perhaps, left in the little box, and this
was produced on solemn occasions of especial rejoicing or to cheer
us up at times of great adversity, such as when our provisions
were so low that we had to content ourselves with hope.

One day, or rather night, I was awakened by the effect of having
drank a great deal of water the day before, which we had done
in order to have something inside us to help make our stomachs
feel full. That avenged itself now in the middle of the night.
Getting out was not pleasant, for it was bitterly cold outside the
clammy warmth of our sleeping bags; but we had learned how to
avoid that: an empty food tin was excellent for the purpose and
one always stood by our side. That night, after my orgy of water,

I made use of my tin, and just as I lay down to sleep again, I
heard a plop, but I paid no attention to it; for it was probably
just one of the many different sounds the ice is able to make.

When I woke, I discovered to my horror that the little box of

i35

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

tea that had given us so much comfort, was not in its place. I was
certain that the evening before it had been standing on the
cooking box near my sleeping bag, but eventually I discovered it
at the bottom of the tin that had relieved me of my distress some
hours before. 1 looked across at Iver: he was sleeping as though
he would never wake, so, knowing what tea meant to us both, 1
fished the little box out, poured off the superfluous, foreign fluid
and squeezed as much as I could out of the leaves, which I then
dried, more or less, on my body — all before Ivor woke.

That morning Ivor badly wanted tea, but I said that there was
so little left, that we had better wait till the toil of the day was
over; and perhaps we might find game before evening came. Iver
sighed and admitted that I was right; but his face lit up that
evening when I made tea for us both and gave him his share. I
was rather anxious about how the tea would taste, but I soon
realized that it was by no means a bad brew. I could scarcely
detect any unwonted flavour, though I knew it must be there,
and Iver just said, in a happy tone of voice: ‘What a good thing
that, at least, we still have a little tea. 5

That, too, was what I thought, and I was glad that I had kept
my mouth shut about the night’s little accident.

We used those leaves again and again, until wc could squeeze
no more taste or colour out of them; and how poor and how
forlorn we felt, when we had to do without the blessing of tea!

Years later, I told Iver what had happened to the little box of
tea, and all he said Was that it was a good thing I had done what
I did, for without tea, no matter in what stale, things would have
been even more difficult to endure.

136

CHAPTER XIII

THE DAYS SHORTEN

Autumn overtakes us — Open sea — He abandon the sledge and our
sleeping bags — Following the shore — Storm, cold, hunger — We leave
our diaries in a crack in a rock

When we were in Danmarks Fjord, we often wondered what
sort of a state we would be in if we did not reach the ship before
summer overtook us. We had thought — and feared — that it
would be more than difficult to get through the summer, if we
were forced to spend it on the coast, and still have strength enough
left to defy the harsh days of autumn. After all, Mylius-Erichsen
and his two companions had not managed it.

Far into the summer, we were still talking about the menace of
‘summering’ and shuddering at the thought, until one evening, as
we sat in the tent talking about it, we suddenly realized that there
was nothing to discuss or fear — we had done it! The summer
was, in fact, over, for the sun had gone below the mountains at
midnight and it was then dark in the tent.

Of course, it was not the first time we had noticed that it grew
dark at night; but it had come so gradually that we had never
stopped to think about it. It was not till we found that we needed
a piece of candle so as to be able to see to repair some skin shoes,
that it suddenly came to us that we had got through the summer,
Iver was quite bewildered by the discovery. Then he smiled and
said, ‘Well, we’ve got through the summer, and more easily than
you thought when we talked about it in Danmarks Fjord.’

He was right. Things had gone better than I had thought
possible. Although we had every reason to fear what the autumn
might bring, we were as happy and satisfied as it is possible to be
with worn equipment, clothing in rags and only food for four or
five days very careful consumption. And, of course, we could never
quite forget that we still had the best part of two hundred miles

137

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

to the nearest proper shelter, the hut at Danmarks Havn.

The nights became long, cold and dark. The stars sparkled and
twinkled; the Northern lights flickered yellow, red or green across
the dark night sky, flaring up so that they almost extinguished
the stars, or fading until they could scarcely be seen, were no more
than a hint, a fire smouldering in space and ready to break out
again, a continual play of light, movement and colour.

Autumn had now come in earnest. Ail water had disappeared
from land and ice, and the sea was covered with new ice, which
felt good and relatively solid, though we still listened to the ring
of the runners and to our own footsteps: if the sound was clear
and sharp, then all was well; but if it was woolly and blurred,
then wc had to be very careful, for the ice might easily be too thin.

You must never expect too much in the North; and even when
you arc most confident of success, you must never forget that the
evil spirits of the polar lands possess powerful means for hurting
those who boast that they have overcome all the mischief those
lands can do.

It is not always easy to remember this, and while the sledge
slid easily over the ice and we made good progress, Iver and I
told each other proudly that, despite all our bad luck, things had
not gone so badly after all. And, though we never said so aloud,
we both thought that We were a rather wonderful couple and
other things, such as you can think of yourself when your belly is
not quite empty and Fortune seems to be smiling slightly on two
foolhardy humans.

But there was a skerry further on and there sat a grim evil
spirit, who knew much better and laughed treacherously at the
two wretched little creatures who had such good opinions of
themselves and even thought that they had outwitted mighty,
merciless Nature by their own strength and courage and ingenuity,
and that it was themselves they had to thank for having got as far
as they had. Thus, when after some hours’ easy sledging across the
shiny new ice, we set foot on the skerry and threw down the traces
to storm up to the crest, happily anticipating that we should see

138

THE DAYS SHORTEN

the sea to the south covered with ice as good for sledging as that
wc had just been crossing, our gay, expectant voices roused this
evil spirit and he blew his icy breath on us, sweeping ail our
arrogance away and shattering our faith in the future, like the
ice on the puddles we had crushed as we stormed along, hurrying
to see good ice between the skerry and the mainland, twelve miles
or so to the south. When we reached the top and looked towards
the south, our eyes were dazzled by the sunlight glinting on the
capricious little waves of an entirely open sea, and wc heard a
slight swell running, sighing and lamenting up and down the
beach.

We stood there, silent and rigid, as if the sight of all that water
had turned us to ice and paralyzed thought. As far as our eyes
could reach towards the east and south, where lay our way to
Danmarks Havn, 120 miles distant, there was not one piece of ice
to be seen, not the smallest floe.

After an hour’s anxious searching, however, we found a way we
could go, though it meant taking a risk that no-one in his right
senses would have taken. To the West of us was swaying new
frozen ice and across this we made our way, treading most
delicately, till we found ourselves standing on the same land as
Danmarks Havn. If our strength held out and we neither of us
broke a leg on the way overland, neither ice nor water could now
stop us reaching the hut.

We could have done with some provisions to help maintain our
strength, but, instead, we were compelled to tighten our belts still
further, for the first cache we reached after defying the evil polar
spirits, was empty. Tins that had been chopped open with an
axe told all too plainly what had happened, and again wc saw
how heavy slabs of chocolate and life-giving oatmeal had been
thrown to dogs. We searched among the stones and turned over
every tin we saw, but we found nothing we could eat. What man
or dog might perhaps have left had been destroyed by storm and
moisture.

There was no time to spend on pointless wondering what could

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

have induced people to treat food in that way. What had been
done could not be undone, and now, having combed the empty
cache, wc realized that the final spurt overland to Danmarks
Havn was going to be the hardest part of the whole race. It called
for travelling light, hard and swiftly, so we decided to abandon
the sledge and everything that was not absolutely vital.

The tent that had been our home for six months, and in which
we had spent so many hours, happy, sad or in anxious waiting for
something to turn up, was itself too heavy to carry. We must do
with less, so, resolutely, wc cut it into pieces and each took just
as much as would cover us. Our sleeping bags were also too heavy
and were cut down to mere foot-muffs. We left one rifle with a few
cartridges at the empty cache, and so, with just the absolutely
essential and our diaries in a bundle on our backs, we set off
southwards along the shore.

We followed the line of the coast, half-heartedly rejoicing when
we came to a stretch of beach on which we could walk more or
less normally, and being mildly annoyed when the mountain rose
almost perpendicular out of the sea and we had to make our way,
clinging by our hands to the sheer rock face, with sardonically
chuckling and not unattractive little waves three feet or so away.
Or we stumbled apathetically across a foreshore in which were
innumerable deep holes and pitfalls between a chaos of huge
boulders, which wc could only cross by jumping from one to the
other. That was dangerous, so dangerous that time and again we
thought longingly of the crevasses of the inland ice and of the
three feet of slush or thaw-water on the sea-ice. They had been
hard and difficult enough, but these boulders were worse, much
worse than anything we had experienced so far. And now we were
starving into the bargain, and no longer steady on our feet; we
slipped easily and stumbled still more easily — in fact, it was a
miracle that we negotiated that boulder-strewn foreshore without
breaking a leg.

We walked on and on until we could go no further, then we lay
down behind a stone, thrust our legs into our foot-muffe, cooked a

140

Til is JLJAYS SttUJK. l lSIN

lump of pemmican and gave the paraffin can an anxious shake:
there was not much left. And so we tried to sleep despite the
piercing cold, and lay there shivering most miserably and just
longing for enough daylight to be able to stagger on again.

And then we saw a bear just ahead of us on the foreshore, where
it had been feasting on a freshly caught seal. Unfortunately, the
bear also saw us, hissed, growled angrily and walked off towards
the sea, began to run, was hit by a bullet in the back, reached the
water and splashed out into the sea to die twenty yards from land
and far beyond our reach.

We sat down on a stone and gazed dully at all that meat and
fat that could have fed and warmed us for days, perhaps weeks,
if only . .. But the current was carrying the bear out to sea and
we shook our heads resignedly. Our hopes all tumbled round us
and the instinct of self-preservation was the only thing we had to
help us: we must carry on or die. We got to our feet and, cold
and exhausted, staggered about among the stones to see if the
bear had overlooked a bit of seal that we could eat. There was
nothing but a piece of gnawed lung, and so we walked on in
silence, till weariness toppled us and we sought rest in a bed of
stiff-frozen moss.

We followed the coast into the mouth of a fjord with skerries,
where, from higher up, we had seen practicable ice stretching
across to the opposite coast. But clouds were piling up over the
mountain tops in the west and rolling down their black sides.
Those were threatening signs, and if the weather turned to storm,
the ice ahead of us, our way to salvation, might easily break up.
If it did, it might be days before it became practicable again, or
else we would have to walk round the fjord, adding a Hundred
miles or so to the distance, and that we were incapable of doing.

We had one stroke of luck, however, for we shot four ptarmigan,
fat ones by the feel of them, and good to have in reserve, since we
had dreadfully little pemmican left and no paraffin to cook it by.
It was bad having no paraffin but, as usual, ‘It is an ill wind.'
Having no paraffin, we had no need of a paraffin tin, which.

* 4 *

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

accordingly, was left there on the beach. The now superfluous
Primus went the same way, as also a casserole, and that lightened
our loads. When pleasures are few, they call for little in the way
of equipment — and how grateful one is!

We walked along the land as long as the light lasted, hurrying
as much as we could in an attempt to race the gathering storm,
which won, despite our efforts, and fell upon us in a scurry of
snow, driving us to shelter behind a boulder where we lay for a
day or two until it subsided.

The ice was still bearing then, and it was with comparatively
easy minds that we walked out on to its even surface. This we
found covered by a thin layer of snow, which made walking easy
and helped us to keep our feet when a squall came sweeping
down from the interior to remind us that, though one storm had
passed, there were others gathering where it had come from. How¬
ever, we could no longer consider what might be coming; we had
to press on, and if a storm came, then it made little difference
whether it struck us down on the ice or took us out to sea on a
floe it had detached, or if we died of hunger and cold on land.

So we walked on, walked and walked across the thin ice
towards some skerries that lay in our path, half way to the coast
in the south where we would be saved.

We reached the skerries and sat for a while behind a stone to
get our breath and recover from the effort, rejoicing in having got
roughly half way across the fjord. If the ice was bearing further on,
we should be on the same land as the food in Danmarks Havn
before nightfall. Our imaginations conjured up visions of food,
and we stilled our hunger with tire only means wc had: talking
about food, a veritable orgy of food-words.

Stiff-legged, chilled to the marrow and starving, we struggled
against the wind to the top of the skerry in order to gel a view of
the ice towards the south. What we saw was water, open sea
reeking with frost-haze and spray whipped up by the violent
squalls.

There was nothing to be done, absolutely nothing. We had to

143

THE DAYS SHORTEN

wait where we were. Despite cold and hunger. Was that skerry to
be our journey’s end, or would we be given yet one more chance?

We found a miserable shelter in a little cleft in the rock, and
there we sat huddled for two or three interminable days. We crept
as close together as possible, or lay clasped in each other’s arms
for the sake of the warmth, first chest to chest, then back to back.
We tried to draw the greatest possible warmth from each other’s
icy bodies, hoping thereby to thaw our limbs. Or was it that we
merely felt a relative warmth, because we hugged so close that the
icy wind could not slip in between us ? When the cold became too
biting, we stamped a litde warmth into our bodies, staggering up
to the top of the skerry to see if we could not soon venture on to
the ice again. But each time the storm was still driving clouds of
frost-haze across black storm-whipped water, and we crawled
disappointed back into our shelter and lay there thinking of food.
Iver wrote in his diary:

‘We never get anything warm inside us now, for we have no
fuel. And here on the island there are no willow twigs or anything
else that will burn, which is a great pity, as we still have a little
tea left!’

It was a pity! And that sentence also ended Iver’s journal for
that part of the journey, for when the storm at last blew itself out
and the frost healed the wounds the waves had torn in the ice, so
that we could stagger on towards the coast in the south and the
food awaiting us at Danmarks Havn, we left behind on the skerry
even the few things we had brought so far. Wrapped in an old
shirt and stuffed into a crack in the rock, beneath a stone so that
no storm could scatter the contents, lay our diaries, Mylius-
Erichsen’s reports, plus every one of the few things that a week
previously we had thought essential for the mere maintenance of
life!

The sea we were now to cross was covered with a shiny film of
ice; we no longer bothered whether it was thick or thin, would
bear or not. We had to get on, if we were not to die of hunger and
cold on that desolate skerry. But though we could risk our own

‘43

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

lives in -walking the twenty miles or so to the land in the south
across extremely thin ice, we dared not risk our papers by taking
them with us. If we did not get across, there remained a possibility
that our diaries in the crevice in the rock on that skerry might be
found, and our journey and death thus not have been altogether
in vain.

It was a wrench leaving die diaries behind, our record of every
gleam of sunshine that had encouraged us, or of each bitter piece
of bad luck we had encountered. We knew, though, that if we got
across the ice all right and reached land in the south, then sooner
or later we would retrace those miles to the nordi and fetch the
bundle, that we had left on a skerry one autumn day when our
lives hung in the balance.

*44

CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST SPURT

On the same land as Danmarks Ham — Hallucinations about food and
warmth — The temptation of a sunny valley facing south — Rest and
sleep behind a boulder — Fear of the rifle — We nearly freeze to death —
A small tin of soup — Under a roof at last — Food, lots offood

We left the skerry, that place of cold and hunger, and miracu¬
lously got across a tidal break with water bubbling in our tracks.
Then we set off walking and walked on and on across the smooth
ice, on whose mirror-like surface the rays of the midday sun were
sparkling and playing straight into our eyes. That had a strange
hypnotic effect. We no longer spoke, did not even think, we just
saw the flickering light and heard the dull tread of our feet on the
smooth thin ice as something far away.

We walked on and on, and though the coast in the south still
seemed as far away as ever, we knew that we were bound to
reach it, if we could only keep going and the ice held. So we
walked and walked, not even thinking of food or aware of hunger
— the end of our hardships was in sight: either in a few bubbles
and a small hole in the ice, or we would reach the ever-receding
coast.

The ice held and, after many hours of automatic walking, the
coast suddenly took to coming towards us in great bounds. We
saw huge boulders around us and before we properly realized
what had happened, or how, the twenty miles lay behind us and
we stood on the same land as Danmarks Havn and food.

We sat down on a stone and shook hands. We did not say much,
for words were no longer necessary between Iver and me. We
bowed our heads in thankfulness, sat quite still for a while, capable
of thought once more, though without conscious control of what
we thought. Our minds felt so strangely empty after the great
effort, yet among our rambling thoughts there was still room for
gratitude for our deliverance that day.

145

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

When the sun went down behind the mountains and the full
moon rose up out of the sea in the east, we pulled ourselves
together, for we had to got on. So, up with you, Ivor, and on we
go. And now we must just walk on and on and on, and we’ll
soon come to food.

Food, however, was still sixty miles away, so we just had to
endure and walk, go on walking till we could no longer set one
foot before another, then sink down behind a stone and sleep till
the cold woke us, and then walk on again, walk until weariness
overcame the will to walk even to save our lives.

We staggered along through bright moonlight and raven-black
shadows, and we were still stumbling along the coast the next
morning, when the sun broke through the frost-smoke in the east.
But then we could go no more. There remained just one more bit
across a little glacier — a last obstacle that nearly became the last,
for the glacier had a large, mirror-like surface that sloped down
to the black sea, and on this we slipped, fell, caught hold of small
protuberances, got to our feet, slipped again, and each slip or
tumble brought us nearer the black and smoking sea. But we got
across the glacier, and, steaming with sweat in the icy air, we
collapsed behind a stone and slept till the cold ran icy barbs deep
into our bodies and woke us.

The coast beyond that glacier was luckily low and easy going,
so we staggered along, as well as wc could, while hunger gnawed
at our vitals and the thought of food never left us.

Suddenly I found myself tliinking of all the white packages of
sandwiches dial used to lie on the shelves outside the classrooms
when I went to school. I could see them, smell them and then I
began to count them, ten, twenty, thirty. Then something
obtruded on the hallucination and I actually saw a packet of
sandwiches, just one, but a big one, lying on the shore a litde to
the right of me and not far away.

I thought: you must hurry, else someone will pinch it before
you get there. And I turned aside and began hurrying towards it,
when a surprised question from Iver brought me back to the

146

THE LAST SPURT

bitter reality of a desolate beach on the coast of the polar seas,
where a little white stone lay glistening in the sunlight.

It was a lovely vision, and I would have gladly enjoyed it a
little longer whatever the cost.

Iver was in no better state than I, for where I saw modest
packets of sandwiches, he saw whole cases of food. He just gave
his head a despairing shake each time he stubbed his tender feet
against what was just a stone.

All at once Iver was walking at my side saying something about
a green valley that faced south. The beach was stony and we
could not help bumping into each other, and as I was interested
only in food and not in green valleys, I told Iver to drop astern,
explaining that it was impossible to walk two abreast on that
ground and in our state.

Shortly afterwards Iver again appeared at my side, and I told
him quite roughly to drop behind:

‘Either you go first, Iver, or I do; we can’t have the comfort of
walking side by side, that will get us nowhere.’

Iver sighed and dropped behind, but he came up alongside
time and again, until I said:

‘What is it, Iver? We can’t walk together. You can see that.’
He tottered as he stood on his tender, aching feet, so we sat down
on a stone. ‘What’s wrong with you, Iver?*

‘Nothing,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘It’s just that I’m so tired.
And then I keep thinking about that lovely, htde valley up there
in Skaer Fjord. You remember it, don’t you ? It faced south and
caught all the midday sun.’

Yes, I remembered it. ‘But what about it?’ I asked. Iver sat
and thought for a while before he replied:

*1 am so tired, and I would like to lie down, and I thought...!’

He had no need to say more.

Then I spoke harsh words to my good Iver, threatened to use
what force I could, if he did not give up that idea. And I told
him about the bodies I had seen of men frozen to death along the
trail through the gold lands of Alaska. They too had been tired

>47

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

and had just wanted to rest for a moment. They too had had a
sunny valley before their eyes, but no companion to drive them
on. And so they died, Ivor, frozen to death while they dozed from
sheer weariness. Do you want to do the same, now that wc are
so near our objective ? Do you want to lie down and die in your
green valley — and leave me alone?

No. Of course lie did not, but it had done him good to talk
about it, and so had the rest, short as it was, and the appeal to
his sense of comradeship perhaps most of all. I only know that
before long we were staggering on, I in the lead, Iver behind,
while I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure that he was
not straying off into his green valley.

Hours passed and night fell, so that we could no longer see to
walk. Fate, however, was kind and there was a dead calm, so that
though the cold was piercing, we were able to get a couple of
hours restless sleep, before wc laboriously got going again, just as
the first flush of morning began to glow on the peaks of the
mountains far inland.

We were no longer so aware of our hunger, I suppose because
we were too weary and tortured to be able to distinguish an
individual lack or pain, where so many dulled our senses. Iver
suffered more than I, because he had rashly bathed his sore feet
in a brook with rippling water, and had got a lot of sharp grains
of sand between his toes. He had done that three days before, and
the sharp sand had now chafed the skin off his toes, leaving them
raw and bloody, so that he suffered dreadfully as wc walked — on
and on and on.

Now and again, however, hunger did come to the surface and
drive all other sensations from our consciousness: wc felt it then
as a physical pain, an overwhelming desire for food.

Again Iver came up alongside me, and for some minutes we
walked in silence close together, swaying on our feet, stumbling
and bumping shoulders; it was impossible to continue like that.
‘Either behind or in front, Iver, I don’t mind which; but we
can’t walk close together, however much we would like to.’

148

THE LAST SPURT

Iver dropped behind and I could hear his unsteady footsteps
on the frozen ground, his occasional stumbles over a stone, hfe
grunts when the pain became too great to be borne in silence.
Then there he was alongside me again.

When this had happened several times, I halted and we sat
down on a stone.

‘What is it Iver?’ I asked. ‘Is it the valley again?’

He did not say much. He just sat and stared out into the distance
and shook his head: ‘No,’ he said, ‘it isn’t the valley. I’m famished,
I can’t do much more.’

I too was famished and not able to do much more; but there
was nothing to be done about it. We had food in Danmarks Havn
and there was no chance of anything edible before that, unless we
ran into a bear and could shoot it.

Shoot? I looked at Iver, who was carrying the rifle, and a
thought came into my head: ‘Tell me honestly, Iver: is it the
rifle you are afraid of?’

He nodded despairingly, looked at me steadily and held out
the rifle: ‘Take it and give me something of yours to carry. I
can’t have the rifle any longer — it’s dangerous.’

So then I knew, and I refused to carry the rifle: ‘Keep it,
Iver,’ I said, ‘carry it as you have been doing and don’t think too
much. But if it will help your peace of mind, I can tell you that
I see you in front of me the whole time. And when hunger dulls
pain, weariness and reason, my thoughts are no doubt the same,
as yours: if he should drop and die, what then? Will you, or
won’t you, eat a bit of what is no longer Iver?’

Iver nodded assent and said: ‘Yes, but I’ve got the rifle.’

‘I know that, Iver,’ I said. ‘But keep it. After all our struggles
we can walk on together, till we can walk no farther; and we can
struggle on together, till we can struggle no more — or have
come to our journey’s end.’

And so we stumbled on, I in the lead — searching out the
smoothest way between the stones, snow and ice, and Iver
walking behind me with the rifle slung on his back, both of us

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

struggling with such ghastly thoughts as only those who arc
mortally tired, starving and tormented can fall prey to.

We were no longer sure where on the coast we were, and kept
thinking that we saw land vve knew ahead of us: there surely were
the two small hills of Seventeen-kilometre Headland, the outer¬
most headland in the south? When we got there, it was not
Seventeen-kilometre Headland after all; but a little farther on we
thought that we could distinguish in the gathering darkness the
two small hills of — Seventeen-kilometre Headland.

Night fell. Darkness enveloped us and made everything appear
unreal, concealing stones and streams and ice from us. We
stumbled, fell, slipped, staggered on till we reached a huge
boulder that broke the slight current of air from the north,
offering two weary men a place to rest and warmth of a sort in
20° G. below zero.

The moon had not yet risen and, not being able to see to
continue, we had to halt, and so we lay down to rest, sleep and
collect a little strength for the last lap. I fell asleep at once and
had a lovely dream: I was at home in my parents’ house with my
back to a glowing tiled stove, and in front of me stood my mother
with a dish of sandwiches saying: ‘Eat, my boy, you must be
hungry after that long tramp.’ I looked at all that lovely food,
listened to Mother’s voice and enjoyed the heat that was almost
scorching my back. All was well, and I was at peace with myself,
but I was slightly annoyed by someone who kept saying: ‘Gome,
let’s go!’ Why should I go, when I was so comfortable? It was a
crazy idea. But then I heard the voice again, and now it was Iver’s
voice. He shook me by the shoulder and said: ‘Come, let us go, or
I’ll freeze to death.’

Then I was awake. The moon was just over the horizon in the
south-east, big and round and red. It was bitterly cold, and the
wind had veered and was blowing straight on to my back and
making it bum — not with the heat of the stove of my dream,
but with searing cold. With Iver’s help I got to my feet, stood
there swaying while Iver fixed the knapsack on my back, telling

*50

THE LAST SPURT

me with chattering teeth of the fearful pain he had in his feet.
And so we tottered on by moonlight and saw the sun rise) half
veiled by frost-smoke. It was fearfully cold.

Then we saw the two hills again, but now there was no doubt:
this was Seventeen-kilometre Headland.

And then we found food!

It was a tin of Beauvais soup, left behind by the lavish men of
the Danmark Expedition, the smallest size of tin there is, but to us
a thing of splendour, hope of remaining alive, an irrevocable
promise that at last the worst was over.

Carefully we opened the tin with a sheath knife and made a
little fire with pieces of packing case, some rich man had flung
there. And so we had food again, almost scalding food — after I
do not know how many days. Devoutly we snuffed in the glorious
smell of soup, and felt the magic life-restoring stuff trickle down
our gullets and reach to the uttermost fibres of our bodies. The
sun was shining and the smoke from our modest little fire rose
straight up to heaven, a thank-offering, accepted by God.

From there we had only eleven miles to more food, lots of food,
much more than the small tin of soup that had put such life into
us. So we laughed to each other with mouths that had almost
forgotten how, and talked with lips that were cracked by the frost,
stiff and hard from having been pressed together so long as we
struggled.

We had to get on. We had to cover those last eleven miles and
reach the hut before darkness fell and halted us. We could not
stand another night without warmth and shelter. So we helped
each other to our feet, our feet that hurt as though we were
treading on red-hot iron, and laboriously staggered on. Then we
left the endlessly long coast and turned inland, up towards the
green ridge behind which lay the Danmark Expedition hut.

We put our arms round each other’s shoulders and walked till
we could walk no more; then we rested a short while in the
warming sunshine, till we noticed that clouds were blowing up
from the west giving warning of storm, and the instinct of self-

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

preservation forced us to our feet again. A storm then would have
meant our death.

We saw the hut from the crest of the hill. It was small and
tumbledown, but to our eyes a palace. So we tottered on downhill
towards the goal that we had seen in imagination so often on our
long journey. Again and again we had to rest, the last time only
fifty yards from our goal, the hut which to us two starving and
exhausted wayfarers meant food and days of rest.

When I stood up to walk those last fifty yards, Iver could go
no farther. He sat where he was and asked me to come back with
a biscuit, a piece of chocolate, no matter what, as long as it was
something to eat. I nodded to say that I would, but when I fell,
rather than walked, into the hut, I forgot all about my friend Iver
who sat waiting out there longing for food, for there on the table
in front of me lay a packet of chocolate, and it drove all other
thoughts from my head. With trembling hands I tore the covering
apart, and then I ate. Oh, how lovely it was!

Iver came staggering in on his own, however, and sank down
on a bench by the table. Without saying a word I shoved a slab
of chocolate across to him, and he munched it up with much
smacking of lips and grunts of pleasure.

Then, for the fiftieth time at least, I began to impress upon
Iver — and myself — that we must be very careful with food and
npt be too voracious to begin with, for to overeat could be
dangerous. I told Iver that at home, when a man was so weak from
starvation that he had to be taken to hospital, they gave him
nothing but spoonfuls of chicken soup.

Weak from starvation ? We knew what starvation was, if anyone
ever had and survived. And we promised each other to be very
circumspect, to eat little and often; we were going to be really
sensible.

We forgot all about it, of course; reason was quite unable to
keep us from food, now that we could have as much as we liked.
Before long a fire was burning in the little stove, and when some
hours later, we stretched out delightedly in warm, new sleeping

THE LAST SPURT

bags and could look forward to a long, undisturbed sleep, we had
each eaten a pound of chocolate, a lot of porridge, at least a
pound of stew, drunk a pint of cocoa which we had not been able
to make thick enough, and eaten endless biscuits and butter
piled with sardines. It had been heavenly!

But the paradise of the hungry proved the hell of the sated.

However, the violent shock of that great meal did not strike us
dead as we deserved, and gradually we got our appetites so well
under control, that we only ate what we needed. It is possible
that any reasonable person would have considered what we
thought a modest ration, astounding gluttony; but then we were
not quite like — reasonable people.

OHAPTER XV

WINTER AGAIN

In Danmarks Havn — We attempt to fetch our diaries — Southwards
towards Alabama — We reach Shannon Island — The ship wrecked —
Alone in North-east Greenland — The second winter — An evil dream

We ate and we rested in Danmarks Havn and let our wounds,
both physical and mental, heal. We revelled in the security of a
house that stood on rock and was fairly well supplied with food
and fuel, and in the snugness of it, when the storms of autumn
swept across the land and the snow drove past the little hut in
great, blinding clouds. We rejoiced in the still, fine days and in
the crackling frost, which we hoped would throw a bridge between
us and our companions on Shannon Island, for we had already
had enough of open water and thin ice, more than enough, and
we had no wish to be exposed to it again.

We talked now of the day that could not be so distant, when we
would pull our sledge into the little haven and up to Alabama,
which we so ardently hoped might be lying safe and sound in the
winter harbour for a second year. We hugged that hope, and soon
felt almost convinced that the ship must be there. That conviction
grew and grew, so that before long we felt quite sure that the
ship was still at Shannon Island with our companions on board,
even though I myself had given orders that she was to sail by
August 15 at the latest. We were now well into September, yet
when we talked of the ship, it was not with a doubtful 'if she is
there,’ but with a convinced ‘she is in the haven, as we left her,
and the others are waiting for us.’

Hope so easily turns to certitude, when you wish something
very strongly, and are alone, and for months have had nothing
but that hope to which to cling. And we hoped greatly, and
rejoiced greatly, and the days were lovely that we spent in the
little hut on the plain behind Danmarks Havn, with plenty of
food and enough fuel for our modest needs.

154

WINTER AGAIN

For a long time the instinct of self-preservation had allowed us
no respite by day or night, but now that we had reached safety,
it had temporarily lost its hold upon us, while the voice of duty
become proportionately more urgent and obtruded itself upon us
at the most inopportune moments. That was a voice that could
not be ignored, for it spoke to us admonishingly about the diaries
we had left behind on the skerry, telling us that we ought at once
to retrace those seventy miles to fetch them. Then only would we
be able to rejoice unreservedly in having come through.

Yes, those diaries! If only we had had them with us! The
thought" of them plagued us by day and even in our sleep at
night. It depressed us to think that we ought then to be sledging
north towards the swiftly increasing darkness, with its storms and
driving snow so thick, that we would have to stumble blindly
along, just in order to fetch them. It was what we should have
been doing, and what we had to do before the weather became
too frightful and the snow too deep: we must pay to the full for
having given way to panic and left our diaries and observation
journals in that fissure in the rock. •

So we made a little sledge, no heavier than what we thought
we should be able to pull when it was loaded, and we made a tent
just big enough for two. Then we set about packing provisions for
the trip north, and as we did that, we also fulfilled the more
pleasant task of packing others for the next and last trip of the
year, that would cover the last 130 miles to the ship and our
companions.

For just under a month we rested and recruited our strength
for the journey north, and then, with traces across shoulder and
chest, we struggled up and across the crest to the east of the hut,
down to the sea ice and up along the coast towards the sinister
darkness and the winds and drifting snow. The sledge that had
seemed quite light at the hut, now felt as heavy as if it were loaded
with stones. The tent was also heavy and not at all snug, and the
going was appalling. When, after seven days, we had only covered
about an eighth of the distance, we had to abandon the idea of

155

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

getting to the skerries on that occasion, even though it meant a
much longer journey in the spring. We could endure no more; so,
making a virtue of necessity, we turned and retraced our steps
with a strong following wind and snow at our backs. Thus, for
the second time, we reached the little hut at Danmarks Havn and
found shelter from the unruly weather, that was ushering in the
winter and warning all live things to get to their dens and there
wait for better times.

We, though, were not like the beasts of the earth, who could
wait for better conditions; we had to try another bout with
darkness and storm, for we must get back to the ship and the
others and to all the glorious things that awaited us there, for in
Danmarks Havn there was neither food nor fuel enough to last
the whole of the long winter.

So we loaded our sledge again, nailed up the door and set off,
heading for the light in the south. At noon that part of the sky
was still golden, and in the middle of that golden patch lay
Alabama, 130 miles away.

We grew tired and breathless after only a few hours toil with
the sledge; our legs ached and it was devilish hard to get along.
We had to have frequent rests, but it was the last journey for that
year, and when it was over we would have reached the ship and
the others, so wc must not waste time with too much bewailing
and resting: ‘Gome on, Iver, on again! We two have overcome
much worse than this.’ So we picked up the traces once more,
flung ourselves into them and hauled the darned heavy sledge
along through the snow and across the salt ice.

Fortunately we were not short of provisions, and we also had
enough paraffin, for we had now reached territory where we had
our own caches. We pressed on for as long as we could, and when
we could go no further, we pitched our tent, which we called
the Cheese Cover because of its smallness and lack of ventilation.
Eleven square feet was the extent of its floor space, and it was
scarcely three feet high. It was small, but it was warm, which to
us was the most important thing, and we kept the Primus burning

156

WINTER AGAIN

till its flame was almost suffocated by lack of oxygen and we had
to let a little cold air in to revive it. Outside a storm might be
raging, screaming and howling, and snow lashing at the tent
which would become stiff with ice and heavy and unwieldy. One
such storm lasted six days, during which we were not able to
move; and after that we again abandoned all our belongings to
the angry gods and set off southwards carrying some food in a
bag on our backs, a little paraffin, a rifle and a spade with which
to dig ourselves into the snow, if the weather became too bad
again.

Thus we groped our way through the darkness, till a brightness
came into the sky and we could see where we were treading. The
light lasted only a short time, however, and when it had gone and
the stars at last were twinkling and sparkling in the black heavens,
we still stumbled on through the dark, till we could go no more.
Then we found a snow-drift, dug a hole in its side and crawled in,
closing the entrance with a plug of snow and leaving the storm
and the dark to keep each other company in the bitter night
outside.

It was cosy in such a clean little snow den, light and warm —
too warm once, for Iver complained after a while that he was
almost lying in a pool of water I Not wanting to discuss that all
night, I told Iver that he had better lie on the spade, for the wet
would not come through that. Iver thought it an excellent idea
and got himself settled, while I went to sleep again — but I was
roused again a little later by the swearing of a frozen Iver: lying
on an iron spade in a temperature of twenty or thirty below had
not proved such a good idea. I had not thought of that when I
told him to do it!

The days passed, and still we trudged southwards with our few
belongings on our backs. We made relatively good speed, for the
weather had miraculously turned fine and the ice was not too
bad. Then, at last, one day when the light came, we saw land,
Shannon Island, the goal that we had been strugglingfor months to
reach, where lay our ship and our companions, in a way our home.

*57

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

The daylight went and it was night again, cold, black night,
with only the stars shining. We set course by a star, found ourselves
on land, slipped on stones, fell into holes and up to our waists in
snow. But what did it matter? Not a thing! Within an hour our
eight months’ sledge journey would be over and we home. The
moon rose, only a paltry little moon, scarcely a half moon, but it
did shed a little light on land and ice, shining like the joy in our
hearts: An hour, Ivcr — in half an hour, Iver — In a quarter of
an hour — think, Ivcr, in a quarter of an hour we will be home
again.

We ran across the ice in breathless excitement: Iver, we’ve won
the race with hunger, water and exhaustion. Over there by the
black rocks, just under the moon, that’s where the winter harbour
must be, the ship and the others. Incredible thought — that there
should be other people again after eight months of there being
just the two of us.

Suddenly I gave a start and halted so abruptly that Iver
bumped into me. With a hand that shook I pointed up at the
recumbent moon: Tver, look! Iver, the ship is there. Iver, don’t
you see, the moon’s bisected by Alabama's mast?’

He saw what I saw, and we shouted with joy, hallooed and
laughed, yodelled and called out.

Were they never going to hear us? We were making enough
noise to rouse the dead, yet we heard no glad shouts or barks of
welcome, and neither man nor dog came storming to meet us.
Iver and I halted, amazed and rather uneasy: what did the
silence forebode ? The ship was there, but all was as silent as the
grave. Where were the others ?

I stared fixedly at the mast and discovered that something must
be wrong. The mast was in such a queer position and looked
remarkably neglected. We still could not see the ship, which was
strange, for where the mast was, the ship should be too. It was
also extraordinary that we had not been heard by either dogs or
men.

Yet the mast was there. We could see it distinctly now, so the

*58

WINTER AGAIN

ship could not be far away. Perhaps she had been mishandled by
the ice. Not that that mattered so much, for we were sure now
that the others must be somewhere near the mast. They could not
have got away without the ship, so there was no question of our
being disappointed of the reunion to which we had been looking
forward so tremendously, and that was the most important fixing
for Iver and me, who had been alone together for nearly eight
months.

We walked on across the ice, stumbling among strange objects
which we could not identify by the light of a half-moon, and then
all at once we were facing something large and black: Alabama's
stem? But no, it was not her stem, despite the skylight we could
see. Could it be a house? Built on land of Alabama's wreck!

All was oppressively still round us, and everything looked
strangely ghostly in the faint moonlight; it was rather sinister.
There was not a footprint of dog or man to be seen in the snow,
not an empty tin thrown out, none of the innumerable signs of
the presence of men and dogs, signs that are inevitable where
people are. It was strange, very strange.

But they must be there in the house! We were now close to it,
and together we shouted out into the dark, silent night: ‘Turn out,
lads. The wayfarers are back at last.*

We listened, but there was not a sound to be heard. Strange! It
was as though our glad triumphant shout had encountered some-
thing evil and inimical, something unreal in the all but palpable
silence.

Then we discovered the door of the house and took a couple of
quick strides towards it, but checked in amazement: there was
not a footprint to be seen, and the snow reached so high up the
door, that it could not have been opened since the autumnal snow
began to fall three months before.

The others must have gone. The hut was empty and Iver and I
alone in Greenland — east of the sun, west of the moon and in
the midst of a white hell.

We said not a word to each other, scarcely even thought; we

*59

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

just kicked the snow away from the door, forced it open and
saw — a compact mass of snow grinning at us, instead of the
black space we had expected.

Quietly, cowed by disappointment, loneliness and the sinister
atmosphere, we set about throwing enough snow out of the hut to
let us in; but when wc got in, it was only to discover that we could
see stars, the moon and some reddish Northern Lights shining
through gaps between the planks of the roof. The sail which they
had stretched over the roof must have blown away in a storm.

Adversity was an old friend of ours, and in its hard school we
had learned to see the good side of any awkward situation,
however small. So it was now: ‘Well, well,’ said Iver with a sigh,
when at last wc had dug our way into the hut, ‘this is a fine mess,
but at least it’s better than having to lie in another snowdrift
tonight.’

He was right. Another night in a snowdrift would have been
hard to endure. We had also reached our journey’s end, and there
was no need to trudge on in the morning. Although our home¬
coming had proved very different from what wc had imagined,
there were bright spots if you liked to see them, quite bright ones
indeed, for as far as we could see part of the provisions appeared
to have been salvaged from the ship, so that we ought to have
enough for the long winter. That was always something to be
glad of.

We crawled into our sleeping bags and fell asleep, and the next
day we had other things than our disappointment to think about.
There was the roof to cover with the ship’s heavy sail, and the
hut to be emptied of snow. The nearby food store had to be
investigated, and when a faint glow of daylight came at noon, we
went out on to the ice to look at what remained of our good ship
and try to guess the reason for her loss.

That, however, we were unable to do, for only the stem pro¬
truded above the ice. Everything else was hidden beneath a thick
layer of ice. We had only wanted to satisfy our understandable
curiosity, for the reason for Alabama's loss did not change the

160

WINTER AGAIN

situation. The ship was gone, stove in, become a hut on land, and
the mast that we had seen, was a flagpole.

But thank God for the hut! It was large and roomy, and
provided excellent shelter from the storms that were continually
sweeping across land and sea. But that was about all that could
be said for it, for its walls were as leaky as the roof had been, and
in order to prevent every breath of wind frolicking about the hut,
they had nailed sheets of tin on the outside of the walls, which was
a splendid idea for keeping the wind out, but disastrous as an
attempt at insulation. The thin tin just sucked the heat out of
the hut and gave the cold free access. That did not matter so
much at night, for we had our sleeping bags and were used to the
cold; and by day we managed more or less by keeping the big
blow lamp from Alabama's engine going full blast. That managed
to get the temperature up to almost 30“ G at the level of our
heads, but a bucket of water standing on the floor would still
freeze in a very short time. To be in anything like a human
temperature in the hut, we had to lie on the table; that was not
very pleasant, but it was a thing that you could do, if circum¬
stances required it.

The time passed in doing the little jobs that winter allowed,
almost all of them indoors. Now and again, when some wandering
bear got wind of our winter den and felt impelled to investigate
it, we had a hunt. If this happened in the faint daylight, or when
the moon was full, it usually resulted in the death of the bear;
but if there was no moon, we usually had to leave the bear alone
and keep indoors, however much of a shindy it made — even
when it bumped against the hut with dull thuds. Such visits were
not pleasant, and we were always very careful when an urgent
errand sent us out into the cold; for a patient bear might have
yielded to its incredible inquisitiveness and lain down in the snow
to wait for us to come out.

One night I was awakened by horrified exclamations and
violent movements in Iver’s bunk: ‘What is it, Iver, are you ill ?’

His answering whisper sent a cold shiver down my back:

i6x

TWO AGAINST THF, ICE

‘Sssh! God help me, but there’s a bear in here .. And the next
moment I heard him throw something at the door and hiss: 'Get
out, will you!’

We kept both our rifles beside the door, so that we could get
them without waste of time, if there should be a bear to go after
under normal conditions. We had never envisaged the possibility
of having a bear inside the hut.

As quickly as I could, I struck a light and got a candle lit. Iver
and J were half out of our bunks, as the light flared up and fell
on the whiteness that was the cause of all the commotion. Luckily
it was not a bear, but merely the hoar-frosted hindquarters of a
musk-ox, which was hanging by the door and now lit by a moon¬
beam that had found its way in through a hole in the roof!

Iver was sick of the sound of the word ‘bear’ by the time we
turned out next morning, but when we began going about our
day-time occupations in the darkness that we called day, his honour
was to some extent rehabilitated, for a bear had paid us a visit
during the night. It had scented the quarter of musk-ox and made
a determined effort to get it, even knocking a hole in the door
and causing other damage, but the hut had withstood its attack.

After that we kept one of the rifles where we could reach it
from the bunks, and the other by the door, so that bears could
come when and as they liked and we would be ready to receive
them.

We had a number of foxes living as permanent pensioners in
the snow-drifts round the hut; noisy brutes they were, but they
enjoyed good living round the door where we threw all our refuse.
Now and again other foxes came without invitation, and then
there would be a violent fight with much barking and howling,
that usually forced us to intervene and try to restore peace with a
rifle bullet, a stick or anything handy that could hit hard. Peace
was not easy to achieve.

Our work was mostly indoors, and it was a good thing that it
was, for the cold was fierce and there were scarcely any intervals
between the storms, violent storms at that. We were thus glad to

163

WINTER AGAIN

be sheltered as we attended to our little jobs, especially the
preparation of food. This was Ivor’s job, and by degrees he learned
to bake bread pretty well and also to cook rice, so that you could
almost tell in advance whether the finished product was to be rice
or rice-pudding. There is more art to that, than most people
think.

One day when we had already been quite a time at the hut, it
occurred to us that we ought to do what we had riot thought of
doing for eight months, which was to wash. We made great
preparations: lit the blow-lamp, stoked the stove till it was red-
hot and fetched great blocks of ice to melt for water; yet even so
there was not a great deal of washing done. We had managed so
long without, that we could see no particular reason to go to all
that trouble just for the sake of cleanliness. We were by ourselves,
so for whom were we washing ?

On Christmas Eve, however, we both got a bad attack of
homesickness, which we tried to cure with a dose of cleanliness.
That did help a little, but Iver was right when he said that it took
evil to drive out evil.

Outside a storm was raging, tugging and shaking at the sail
nailed to the roof, making it flap so violently that we were con¬
tinually expecting it to be torn loose and swept away. The storm
howled and shrieked round the comers of the hut, rattled the
chimney so that it sounded as though a wild animal were caged
there. It whistled and screeched, it creaked and crashed, it
sounded as though ali the devils in Hell had been loosed and had
made our solitary hut in the Far North their rendezvous in that
dark, wild night. If we peered out cautiously through the door,
we. could see devils in ghostly white garb whisking round in a
senseless dance. For the snow was drifting, sweeping past, whipping
up an endless army of strange snow-figures from round the hut,
blurred, ghostly shapes, ever changing in wild career and flight,
following each other southwards towards destruction.

Outside was not a place to be. It was quite uncanny, all the
tilings you thought you could see and hear,

p 1C3

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Not that it was so much better inside, where the reeking blow¬
lamp emitted a long, blue-red tongue of flame that flickered in
the draught, as did the candles, making grotesque black shadows.

It was as horrible inside as out, and it was also Christmas Eve.
Iver and I looked at each other and did not have as much to talk
about as usual, for our thoughts kept following the stormy north
wind to milder climes, to those at home who were celebrating
Christmas with an empty place at table and an anxious longing
in their hearts. That was unhealthy for two lonely men, and we
thrust such thoughts aside as far as we could, eating the best that
the hut could provide and washing it down with a bottle of beer
that we had found outside in the snow.

It was a queer looking bottle of beer, for in freezing the beer
had forced the cork out and was protruding from the neck of the
bottle, like a bent finger some four inches long. We broke off the
finger, thawed the beer in a pan and tried to pretend that it
tasted all right. We shared our last glass of whisky to drink to
absent friends, and so crawled into our bunks with all our clothes
on, for we intended at least to be warm for Christmas.

We did not get much sleep, however, for just as we were at our
most woeful, it suddenly occurred to us that after all we had good
reason to celebrate, for the sun had now halted in its flight towards
the south and was on its way back towards us with light and
lovely colours in its train, and with them the promise of summer, a
ship and a homecoming.

It really did feel as though that realization had relieved the
press of winter. Or did we merely feel that because we had
gradually become rested and overcome the everlasting hunger
that had tormented us for die best part of six months? At all
events our spirits improved from Christmas on, became better
and better as the days passed and the patch of lightness in the
south crept higher and higher up the sky.

We began to feci a renewal of interest in the future, though not
in the immediate future which could only offer us a 200 mile
sledge journey north to the skerry where we had left our diaries,

164

WINTER AGAIN

and the same distance back again. Four hundred miles in all. It
was a darned long way, and we tried to calculate how many steps
it would take to cover 400 miles: it was an incredible number. We
cursed the diaries which we had abandoned there in a moment of
panic, when we thought that we could see death sitting waiting
for us by the next headland.

Matters were not improved, when one night I dreamed that I
was on the skerry and saw a bear come trotting along the ice
and catch the scent of our bundle in the crack in the rock. I had
no rifle and could not shoot the bear, which hissed at me and
lunged out with a great paw, when I tried to drive it away with
shouts and my sheath-knife. So, unable to do anything to stop it,
I had to watch the bear dig our bundle of diaries out of the snow,
tear and bite at it, split it open with its sharp claws and teeth,
and scatter the contents over the snow so that the howling wind
could sweep away all that we had struggled so hard to achieve.
And I saw our precious diaries fly away on the wind, like small
black birds borne on the wings of the storm.

It was a nasty dream and the recollection of it kept cropping
up to act as a wet blanket, when we were feeling light-hearted
and wanting to sing for joy — not because anything special had
happened, but just because it was good to be alive in spite of
everything, and because the sun would soon be back again. Nor
could we grieve long over a wretched dream that could not have
any significance.

165

CHAPTER XVI

SPRING AND SUMMER HOPE

Winter's talk — The skerry with the diaries — A dream proves true —
Plans for the future — her has a visitor — Difficult pack-ice — Autumn
— We give up hope of a ship

New Year’s Day and most of January now lay behind us,
and the wintry darkness was no longer so oppressive. It was
growing lighter every day and already the clouds had acquired a
golden sheen, the snow-clad mountains in the north stood out in
golden splendour against the dark heavens, and the northern
slopes were clad in sharp, white-blue shadow.

We would soon be able to get out again, away from the horrible
untidy room in which we had spent the harsh winter months. It
would not be long before wc could test our strength on a fresh
sledge journey. We were young, well-fed, rested and bursting
with energy that required an outlet. Our thoughts sped north to
the golden mountains, to the skerry where our diaries and journals
were, wc hoped unharmed by boar or other mishap. Our thoughts
also went far to the south to lands where there were other people,
men of enterprise and attractive women: ‘You, Ivcr, what would
you do, if a girl suddenly came walking across the ice towards
us?’

Improbable? Yes, but it could have happened. So much that
is strange and unexpected docs happen, so why not that? Where
could she come from? It was not impossible to imagine that
somewhere or other a bit to the south of us, a ship had been
wintering, a ship with a girl aboard.

Admittedly that was fairly ‘improbable,’ but not improbable
enough for Ivor, whose mind worked on other and more compli¬
cated lines than mine, for when he heard that casual suggestion,
he, the mechanically minded, at once thought of other possible
means of transport than an old-fashioned ship. Before he sailed

166

SPRING AND SUMMER HOPE

north in 1909 Iver had seen a Zeppelin over Copenhagen, and
he considered it perfectly natural that there might be a Zeppelin
flying round in space with a lot of very boring men, but also
some pretty women, on board her. And such a Zeppelin could
just as well land at Shannon Island as anywhere else, couldn’t
it?

That was perfectly true, and it opened up fantastic perspectives.
Then we began talking about how strange it would be to see
women again, elegant, beautiful women, as pure as the flakes of
snow that were being borne along by the spring breeze. How
chivalrous we would be to those unfortunates, who suddenly
dropped down beside us two savages who had not seen a woman
for a couple of years. We would do everything to help them, in
the most unselfish manner. After all we knew the country and
how you got much out of nothing. We would ... my imagination
began to run riot, till it was checked by Iver suddenly saying:
‘Yes, and then we would have to wash, wouldn’t we?’ We looked
at ourselves in the mirror: grimy, bearded faces and long hair;
we looked awful: it was a depressing sight, for we realized that
we could not captivate even the most unfastidious woman.

We usually found no lack of topics for conversation and had
told each other more about ourselves and aspirations, hopes and
dreams than we had ever told anyone before. And we were always
able to take some episode from our previous existence, turn it
upside down and inside out, and get more out of it than you
would have thought possible before. One of our favourite topics
was politics. Iver was the reddest of red Social Democrats, a social
revolutionary; while I was the scandalized Conservative listening
to the unreasonable demands of pink youth with ill-concealed
displeasure. We talked and talked, and I do not suppose either of
us knew much about what we were discussing. We had neither of
us been particularly interested in politics, but it made an excellent
topic of conversation. We never quarrelled; just remained stead¬
fastly on our side of the fence and said wise things about what wc
did not really understand. That, of course, is just what a lot of

167

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

people do elsewhere in the world, and there was no need to travel
to the polar regions for that.

We found a pack of cards and were highly delighted, for that
meant that wc had something to help pass the dark evenings.
Unfortunately we could not remember the rules of any game for
two, so we tried to make one up ourselves. That was not very
successful. It was not even easy to invent a patience, and I made
great efforts to remember one that an advanced Alaskan Eskimo
had shown me, a game which he had said was called Idiot’s
Delight. Iver could not stand Idiot’s Delight, so that was no good,
and we then tried to work out some other game with a nicer
name. That was no good either, so, when we were on the point
of squabbling over who knew most about it, I took the pack,
walked out with it into the storm and let the wind scatter the fifty-
two cards like chaff.

Iver was looking a bit sour when I came in again; but the next
day he told me that what I had done was very sensible: that pack
of cards might easily have caused us to quarrel, as neither women
nor politics had.

All the while we were talking and dreaming of the unattainable,
we worked away on a sledge and the equipment wc were to use on
our 400 mile journey to fetch our diaries and journals. Around
noon, if the weather had cleared and the storm for once tired of
lashing snow in our faces, we went out and looked towards the
south and rejoiced at the growing patch of brightness there, at
the glowing blaze that was growing and growing, and one day
would flare up into a glorious, life-giving fire that would consume
the winter and all its stupid imaginings.

That came about on February 10. The glow in the south
suddenly shot arrows of fire across the land at the tired hosts of
darkness in the north, striking terror into their hearts and putting
them to flight, clothing the land in golden, sparkling splendour,
and celebrating its victory over the darkness with a wonderful
orgy of colour, which it cast over the whole country, over valley
and mountain, ice and land. One of those fiery arrows struck Iver

168

SPRING AND SUMMER HOPE

and me on a spur of the mountain, where we had been standing,
freezing miserably for the last hour or so, in order not to miss the
first sunbeam to be seen in the year 1911.

We stared at that glowing fire, revelling in the thought of the
summer that now seemed so near at hand, and of all that would
happen to us in that lovely time that was now drawing nearer with
giant strides. We greeted the sun with mad shouts of joy that
sounded meagre and faint-hearted in all that silence; and high
above our heads a black ghost passed, heading for that golden
conflagration, a loudly croaking raven, at which we cast jealous
looks: if only we could borrow its wings and fly over land and sea
to the goal of our dreams. But that sort of thing only happened in
the old days, when magic was still made, and not in our prosaic age.

Although we could not borrow the raven’s wings and no
Zeppelin dropped out of the skies to bring us beauteous maidens,
it was nonetheless glorious to see the sun, and when the most
painful of the barbs of the cold had been melted by the swift
northward course of the sun, we put the traces over our shoulders
and began our laborious trudge north. We walked for weeks,
three whole weeks, before we reached the skerry. We hauled the
sledge all along Koldewey Island and past Danmarks Havn; we
gave nods of recognition to headlands and islands, that we had
passed the previous autumn on our way to Shannon Island, and
to the icebergs that the frost had halted in their voyage to the
south, shadowy shapes they had been, scarcely visible in the
wintry gloom, but now they were golden and resplendent in the
midday sun, lovely, friendly and almost warm-looking, quite
different from the prim mileposts we had passed in the black sad
days of autumn.

It was lovely and sunny, and we rejoiced in the good progress
we were making, as we followed the well-trodden bear tracks
along the shore, which often helped us to juicy bear-steaks; yet
despite this and our weariness after hauling the sledge for ten or
twelve hours through all sorts of snow, in which the going was
heavy at the best, the memory of that damned dream was always

169

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

with us, the dream that had nearly spoilt our peace of mind during
the winter.

Countless times we had said to each other: 'Supposing the
dream were true!’ Almost every time we wakened in the night
and listened to the sounds of the ice, the almost comprehensible
speech of the frost and the wind’s chatter, the terrible thought
returned: ‘Suppose that when we get there, we find the dream
come true!’

Gradually wc drew near the flat white mound that marked our
skerry. Beneath that snow lay our diaries and journals, or so we
hoped. Wc were so eager to put an end to the awful doubt the
dream had cast into our minds, that we left the sledge standing
on the ice and hurried on towards the white hump so as to find
out as quickly as possible. But, when we got closer, we halted in
amazement: we had not expected so much snow! There was not
a dark patch to be seen on the skerry, nor was there a sign of the
three or four stones we had built up vertically on edge to act as
a cairn beside the diaries.

It was a big skerry, about half a square mile, and about 150 feet
high. The whole area was completely covered by a gigantic snow¬
drift, and somewhere or other beneath all that snow were our
diaries.

But where?

Appalled, we stood on the top of the island and surveyed the
white expanse. Iver had brought a spade and as he looked at me,
I read in his eyes the unuttcrcd question: Where shall I dig?

‘Dig?’ I said replying to the unspoken query. ‘Dig where you
like. Where you’re standing, for example, or six feet away. It
amounts to the same thing, for wc arc not going to find the diaries
in all that snow.’

Iver took me at my word, thrust the spade into the snow just
where he was standing — and gave a loud shout: the first thrust
had struck a diary! The next revealed a piece of the cloth in
which the diaries had been wrapped. It took only ten spadefuls to
unearth all that we had left there on that bitter autumn day, all

170

SPRING AND SUMMER HOPE

except one of my diaries, and for that we dug all day without
finding more than a few chewed pieces of its leaves.

A bear had been there, just as I had dreamed.

It had been a hungry bear, too, for it had chewed everything
that could be chewed. One cartridge had been quite flattened;
it was a wonder it had not exploded in the bear's mouth.

It was two happy men who pitched their tent there later that
evening, for the loss of my one diary was of no great significance,
since that period was still covered by Iver's diary.

Now we would go home, as we could with a reasonably good
conscience. We had done what we had undertaken to do, and the
damned bear had not eaten up our results. There was every
reason to rejoice. The sun was shining, the tent was warm and
tight, we made coffee and cooked ourselves a meal, and as we ate
and drank we remembered the bad days. We talked of the
journey home, not of the 200 miles back to the hut, that counted
for nothing now that we had the diaries, but of the proper journey
home across the seas to Denmark, to sunshine and summer,
green woods and golden fields, to family and friends, to her,
whoever she was, to whom our thoughts went whenever our minds
were not weighed down with other things.

We returned to the hut at Shannon Island, and in the bright
light of high summer its interior looked so dirty, so grim and
melancholy and depressing, that we said goodbye to it as soon as
possible, and hoped never to see it again.

We set off southwards, wading through soggy snow, splashing
through shallow lakes on the ice, and struggling across muddy
clay on land, making for a little hut on the south-east point of
Shannon. This was one of four small huts erected by the American
explorer, Baldwin, in 1901, and which he had filled with so much
lovely food, that the tale of it was heard by all who came for a
shorter or longer time to the northern coast of East Greenland in
those early days at the beginning of this century.

We were very doubtful whether there really could be so many
good things in the insignificant little hut as rumour said, but we

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

were pleasantly surprised when eventually we got there. So we
settled down on that outer headland to await the ship that would
come in the course of the next month or so, and take us east to
the glories of the ordinary world.

It was a relief to have taken the last step of our long journey
and to have reached its end, so that we could with a good con¬
science enjoy ourselves in the hut, which we ransacked and made
the most of its store of provisions. (How I and my companions on
the Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition would have enjoyed them ten
years before, when we tried to reach the Pole from Kaiser Franz
Josephs Land! The intention, then, had been that we should
return via the cast coast of Greenland, but we never got as far.)

Wc settled ourselves into the hut, where we found a letter from
our companions, telling us that they had left the winter harbour
at the end of August in a little Norwegian sealer. They had waited
for us as long as they possibly could, and they had even got the
sealer to sail a little way north to look for us. But we were then
right up at Lamberts Land! And so they had sailed for home, as
they had been ordered to do; and there we now were, waiting
for a ship.

It was not long before the evil spirits of East Greenland dropped
a little gall into our cup, sending us a cold summer, as a result of
which mist lay thick and impenetrable over the pack ice, hiding
the sun from us, often for days on end. Nor were the results of
our hunting as good as we had hoped, chiefly because wc were
reluctant to go far from the hut, since it was always possible that
a ship might be lying off somewhere out in the mist, and so might
reach land at any moment. We did, in Fact, often hear noises
like those from a ship, coming from the clammy world of the mist,
so naturally we kept near the place to which the ship would
come. The ship was sure not to be able to wait for us, for the
winds and currents were keeping the ice in too much motion for
her to be able to do that. Thus things were not all that they might
have been, and, to be candid, our stay on that outer headland
was not what we had anticipated.

17s

SPRING AND SUMMER HOPE

Now and again, in fact quite often, we saw things on the ice
that imagination and retraction transformed into mast and ship,
to people hastening across the great icefloes. But on each occasion
we were disappointed. In the beginning we talked of the ineffable
joy it would be, when the ship came at last; but as time went on,
as June turned into July and then all too quickly August was
there, we spoke less and less of the joy it would be to see the
ship, preferred not to speak of the ship at all, so as not to start an
avalanche of dreary thoughts about the future and what our fate
would be, if the ship did not come after all.

However, we found that we forgot the tardy ship when we were
occupied with work or busy planning what we could do with all
the years of the future; for when you are only thirty you feel
yourself entitled to a good many. We had many plans, but there
was one in particular that soon won preference over all the others
and which we found especially attractive, that of repopulating
the empty coast of North-East Greenland.

The origin of the plan was a very obvious one, for wherever we
went on Shannon, we found quite numerous traces of former
habitation. We had also seen similar traces in many places farther
north, huts fallen into ruin, stone traps for bear and fox; so, when
we felt lonely and abandoned, we derived a sort of encouragement
from talking about the paradise the coast could have been, if
there had been Eskimoes to be met — as in the olden days —
beyond the point where there were the ruins of a dozen houses.

But could Eskimoes live where we with our rifles had all but
perished from starvation? There was no disguising the fact that
we had not bagged anything worth mentioning, certainly not
enough to live off. But we had seen both bear and seal, and a
certain amount of smaller game, and we were convinced that
Eskimoes who were familiar with the country, and who lived
there more or less permanently and thus would know the best
hunting areas and times, would be able to get enough on land
and sea to keep themselves going, and probably much more.

Once we started talking about what there had been in the past,

17$

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

it was inevitable that we should begin discussing the possibility of
repopulating the coast, of moving Eskimoes from the over-
populated areas of West Greenland to East Greenland, where in
our opinion there was a livelihood to be had for many. In
imagination Iver and 1 could see satisfied Eskimoes living here
and there up and down the coast, and before long we were saying
happily that in a few years time, perhaps, you would be able to
see a women’s boat rounding die south-east point of Shannon,
followed by four or five men in kayaks. We looked at our maps
and tried to decide where would be the best points for Eskimo
immigration.

They could certainly exist on Shannon, the island where we
were waiting for our ship, and at Danmarks Havn, and up the
big fjords with their calm, shiny water. The many ruins of houses,
both where we were and elsewhere, had a convincing tale to tell.
But Shannon Island was perhaps too far north, and the distance
too great to the only inhabited place in East Greenland, Ang-
magssalik; so wc compromised and agreed that Scorcsby Sound
was perhaps the most suitable place for a new colony. Hunting
was good there, as I knew from the Amdrup Expedition, and in
the old days many Eskimoes had lived on that great fjord, the
biggest in the world.

We found it a splendid plan with which to occupy our minds
during those hours, when the longing to see someone other than
the one miserable wretch wc were always looking at, was especially
strong. Suppose the plan had already been put into effect and we
might expect at any moment to see a women’s boat come paddling
through the floes filled ■with happy, laughing Eskimo women. And
suppose that they, nodding and smiling enticingly, were to go up
the mountain-side and summon the two fools who in their mas¬
culine arrogance had believed that they could get along by them¬
selves in that harsh land, but now realized how hopeless that was.

These Eskimoes with whom in imagination we gradually
peopled the coast soon seemed anything but stupid fantasies.
They were so real to us that we often forgot that they were mere

*74

SPRING AND SUMMER HOPE

creations of imagination, conceived by our crushing sense of
loneliness. But at least they gave ns something to think about while
we waited longingly for the mist to lift, so that we could see the
ship that must be lying off from the hut, or at least making its
way through the pack-ice towards us. We went up the mountain¬
side whenever the mist lifted and scanned the wilderness of dense
ice, that extended as far out to sea as our gaze would reach. It
would not be easy for any ship to get through that.

Then one day something quite sensational and most unexpected
happened: Iver received a visitor.

He had gone out with his rifle and returned sooner than I had
expected. He looked rather bewildered and went and sat down
quietly on a stone. That was so unlike him, for he was usually
most cheerful, that I asked what had happened.

I was prepared for any answer except the one I was given.
Iver looked at me, astonishment in his eyes, and said quietly:
‘I’ve seen my grandfather; he was sitting on a stone up there’ —
and Iver pointed up towards the high ground. ‘He must be dead.’

A cold shiver ran down my back, and I looked sharply at Iver.
He appeared perfectly normal, though there was an expression in
his eyes I had not seen before — and I thought I knew him pretty
well. That he should have said that about his grandfather came
as a surprise, and I said as much, and tried to dismiss the whole
thing as nonsense; but Iver insisted: ‘He was sitting up there on a
stone. He had on the red cap that he always wears, and I recog¬
nized his suit. It was grandfather, that’s quite certain. He must
be dead now,’ Iver said quietly, ‘he and I were such good friends.’

Iver and I walked together to the stone where his grandfather
had been sitting, but he was no longer there. Iver, however, still
insisted that he had seen him. One day, more than forty years
afterwards, I asked Iver if he really had believed that he had seen
him, and he nodded: ‘I saw him, Mikki. It was grandfather. And
when I came home, I learned that he had died just at that time.*

It sounds very' odd, but there is yet smother example: one day
shortly after our return home, my mother asked me what had

175

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

happened to me on a certain day, the date of which was written
on a piece of paper she showed me. It was a date I knew; I
remembered it at once, for on that day my life had been in grave
danger. I do not know whether I had thought of mother particu¬
larly intently, but it is possible. You think so much and so swiftly,
when you suddenly discover that there is only a second or two’s
sand left in your hour-glass.

What is one to believe? You do not need to be hysterical or
occupied with isms to find yourself thinking on occasion, that there
is more between heaven and earth than the exact sciences can
explain or will admit. I find myself thinking, too, of that distant
day in Calcutta roads, when an Indian foretold me a future in a
land so white and desolate that he had never imagined anything
like it. Up to 1912 that prophecy had been kept pretty well, and
later it became truer than ever.

We did not have much time, however, to wonder about weird
happenings, nor much desire; for we suddenly realized that the
days had sped whilst we waited for the ship. Most of August had
already flown, like the migrant birds that were winging their way
south, passing over our heads as we sat by the flagstalf staring out
across the ice-covered sea. They quacked and jabbered as they
passed overhead on their way south, and we gazed viciously at
the flag that in happier days we had hung in a bag by the flagpole,
so that it should be ready to hoist without loss of time, when we
saw a ship out in the ice.

But the ship never arrived. Instead of it came dark nights with
stars, colourful Northern Lights and cold so fierce that the ground
became as hard as armour-plate in the course of one night, and
every puddle on land or pool on sea was made shiny with new
ice. Gone was the blue bells’ soft ringing in summer breezes; the
purple flowers of our rose-bay had been powdered white. All
vegetation had stiffened in the cold, and the delicate stems that
had withstood so many stormy gusts during the heat of summer,
became brittle and snapped with small reports, when the harsh
wind of autumn blew across the land.

176

SPRING AND SUMMER HOPE

The mountain tops round us became powdered with the finest
of new-fallen snow, and glistened whitely as they towered towards
the pallid sky, their shadows blue-black. Not infrequently the
outlines of the mountains were veiled, or became blurred and
indistinct, and then we knew that dirty weather was brewing up
there in the heights. Storm-clouds came tumbling down the steep
mountain-sides. Autumn was upon us and winter near. Only fools
could expect a ship so late; yet we still waited, and our eyes gazed
longingly at the migrating birds that chattered and quacked so
expectantly and joyfully, as they flew past towards the light and
warmth of the south.

The two of us were left there in that desolate land, feeling more
and more forlorn. Soon there would only be stragglers from the
migrating flocks left, and the country’s own animals: long-haired
musk-oxen, agile foxes, lurking wolves and snuffing bear. And we
two!

The migration ceased. We no longer heard the sharp clangour
of the terns or the hoarse cackle of the gulls, only the ominous
screech of the ravens. On land we neither saw nor heard the
nimble litde birds that had delighted us so greatly in the summer.
The seals no longer sunned themselves on land or ice, but wanned
themselves in the cold black water. The fox cubs and leverets had
grown up and were having to fend for themselves; winter was very
near, a long, dark winter, interminably long and dark.

177

CHAPTER XVII

THE THIRD WINTER

The ship never came — Plans to get to Angmagssalik by ourselves — the
dinghy is wrecked on land — Bass Rock — A grim cross — Two skips
looked for us — A dual existence — Would we have , or would we not? -
Pensioners and a trap's victims

W e had to face up to realities and, grim though the outlook might
be, get ready to spend a third winter in Greenland. During tins
we had also to make preparation for the following summer, when
we intended to try to get away by ourselves, instead of sitting
with our hands in our laps waiting for a ship.

While we had been waiting and still hoping, we had sometimes
talked, first as a joke and then seriously, of bringing the dinghy
from the winter harbour down to this south-eastern point of
Shannon, so that as soon as there was open water in the spring,
we could sail south to Angmagssalik, where we would find people.

It was 1300 miles to Angmagssalik which was a very long way,
but there was nothing discouraging in that, for the current always
flows south along the coast of East Greenland, and that at quite
a good rate. It would make things considerably easier, if we could
get the dinghy up on to some large ice floe, which would drift
day and night and carry us with it southwards to our distant goal.

In the summer we would certainly be able to hasten our progress
by putting the dinghy into the water and either rowing or sailing,
if the wind were favourable. The thing was quite possible, given
a little luck; and if we did not manage it, well, hard work and
reasonable hopes of reaching people were always better than
sitting and just waiting, waiting, without being able to do any¬
thing to avert the fate that awaited us.

So we left the hut, where we had met with such disappoint¬
ments, and walked back home to — yes, where was our home?
Everywhere, I suppose, where we had a tiny hut, a den where,

178

THE THIRD WINTER

like other of the country’s animals, we could seek shelter from the
cold and the storms that whipped like scourges.

In this case our home was our old winter quarters, and with
our gear in a bundle on our backs we trudged across ice and
land to get the dinghy that in the following spring was to carry us
south — to people!

We felt much better, once we had definitely given up all hope
of the ship coming that year. Iver was a magnificent companion,
and if ever two people got on well together, it was he and I. We
knew each other’s innermost being and thoughts; we knew what
reaction we could expect from the other in all circumstances, and
we were both convinced that we could get through another winter,
as long as we were together — and in good health. But, in talking
oi this as we had many times, we had also agreed that if one of
us went, the other would not be able to live: two together could
manage, but one alone? Never!

As usual when we were toiling at something together, Iver
found a song to suit the occasion, and while we trudged north we
bawled out into the cold and darkness: ‘So here we sit for the
third year running, third year running, third year running’ —
and then a bit more which I have forgotten, and jtralala. We
thought it sounded quite lovely, and somehow or other it relieved
our minds after the disappointment.

A successful musk-oxen hunt that provided us with meat
enough to last for a long time further improved our spirits. It was
horribly cold at night lying on the frozen ground wondering
whether the daylight would not soon be putting the stars to
flight; but that was only for a few days, and then we came to the
hut which we had hoped never to see again.

The walls were covered with sparkling hoar-frost, and it
smelled sour and mouldy inside. It was a dismal, depressing
dwelling, but tucked away in it were a number of things that we
would need during the coming winter and on our journey south
in the spring. And there was work to do! We had a sledge to
build, a sledge strong enough to cany the dinghy; and then the

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

meat of the musk-oxen we had shot had to be cut, dried and
frozen. In fact, there were hundreds of little things to be done,
quite enough to keep us busy in that hut on the north-west point
of Shannon Island, which was our temporary home.

Storms fell upon us, as they do every autumn. Snow swept
across the land, while the ice was cleft by long frost-fissures and
sighed and moaned. It became darker and darker every day, and
instinct sent the animals to their dens under big stones, or they
sought warmth beneath the thick cover of the snow. We knew it
all and accepted it patiently, sewing garments, making the sledge,
overhauling the dinghy — and what a hard struggle it was getting
the heavy thing on to the sledge and lashed down! It was quite
out of the question that wc could haul the sledge without help, so
we stepped the dinghy’s mast, made a sail and hoped that the
wind would help us take our heavy, but precious burden south.

All our preparations took time. The days of storm and enlorced
inactivity were sometimes long, for wc had nothing to read but
two newspapers, dated prior to our departure from Copenhagen.
These precious things had been used as mere wrapping, but of
course there was plenty of reading matter to be had in Copen¬
hagen. We, however, were very glad of our two newspapers; they
were read, discussed and construed in every possible way. It was
really quite amusing and gave us a lot of fresh topics of conversa¬
tion, and wc were able to invent long stories from the advertise¬
ments, especially the marriage ones.

New topics were most welcome, for wc knew each other’s
opinion on everything under the sun and could scarcely start
talking about anything without knowing exactly what the other
would have to say about it. We were on the point of growing tired
of each other’s voices, and it was becoming difficult to raise a
smile at jokes and sayings we had heard hundreds of times before.

The first week or two after we had given up hope of the ship
were difficult to get through, there being too crass a difference
between the life we were living and would have to live for the best
part of another year, and that we had hoped to be able to lead at

j8o

THE THIRD WINTER

home in Denmark. But dreary as life was in the hut, that never
affected our friendship: hasty words that we would have regretted
afterwards might spring to our lips at times, but they never
passed them. Such words had to be held back, so that we should
not later have to rue the hasty stupid things we had said.

In the middle of October we left the hut at the north-east
point of Shannon Island. We hoisted sail on the dinghy that was
lashed fast to a stout sledge, and we also had a sail on another
sledge that carried all our gear, and with this little squadron we
set off south before a fresh north wind. The wind seared and stung
where it found its way in through the holes in our clothing, but as
it was also driving our heavy sledges along nicely, we just had to
freeze with a good grace. For a couple of days all went reasonably
well, and we had covered more than half the distance, when in a
squall I drove the sledge with the dinghy into a huge snowdrift,
and there it stuck. The mast blew overboard, the sail followed the
driving snow and vanished into the darkness, while snow kept
falling by the cart-load, swirling round us so that we could not see.
When we eventually got a grasp of the situation, it was quite clear
that we must abandon the dinghy; it was hopelessly stuck and was
being rapidly buried under a mountain of snow.

That was the end of our hopes of being able to sail or drift on
an icefloe down to Angmagssalik in the spring, and it was two
very depressed men who somehow or other hauled the other
heavy sledge to the hut at the south-east point of Shannon.

We had by degrees become fed-up with Shannon, which seemed
to have a hoodoo on it. Everything we had undertaken there had
turned out quite differently to what we had intended. The dis¬
appointments had been many and the joys few, so we decided to
get away from it arid take advantage of the first good weather
and fair wind to ‘sail’ the sledge across to Bass Rock, where there
were two more of Baldwin’s huts, the contents of which I was
entitled to use.

It was not far across the sea to Bass Rock, just over thirty miles,
and as we had the wind with us we sped quickly across the ice.

161

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

To leeward, only a few hundred yards away, was a seemingly open
sea lashed into foam by a stiff north wind. The wen cs washed up
over the edge of the ice, spray came hurtling through the air and
rattled against the sail, sledge and us, hurting like the stab of a
knife when it struck our unprotected faces. Large pieces were
continually breaking ofl the edge of the ice and drifting out to
sea, bringing the open water nearer and nearer towards where we
were. It looked pretty dangerous. But wc reached Bass Rock, and
there we stopped in amazement when we saw what was on the
shore: a tall pole to the top ofwldch was nailed a horizontal board,
a cross in the wilderness where before there had been nothing!
Ivcr and I looked at each other in bewilderment: there must have
been people there even after our companions had left. And was
that cross, perhaps, raised in memory of us?

That we never discovered. There was no explanation of the
cross to be found on Bass Rock, nor did I ever find out anything
about it later. The cross was there, but no one would admit to
having erected it.

To our infinite surprise and dismay there were other, quite
unmistakable signs that people' had been on Bass Rock, while we
were on Shannon keeping watch for a ship. This was all too
obvious from two messages we found nailed to the wall in the hut:
one was from a sealer, which had helped itself liberally to the
provisions in the hut and in return intended to make an attempt
to reach Shannon and, if possible, find us. The other was from a
Norwegian steam yacht, I Aura, which had brought a party of
Austrian counts and countesses up to East Greenland to give them
a thrill.

Was it these aristocratic tourists who had set up the cross?

Laura, of course, had also tried to reach Shannon Island in
order to discover what had happened to us; but ice had prevented
her getting more than halfway, and so her counts and countesses
had missed the thrill they would undoubtedly have got Ironi
visiting our summer camp. Not that wc were fit to be presented
to noble ladies of the Austrian aristocracy, but we did not think of

18s

THE THIRD WINTER

that until later, when we had got over the worst of the disappoint¬
ment at a ship having been less than fifteen miles from us, and we
were back in the routine of every day. At first we were quite
numbed by the news, and thought ruefully of what those few
miles had meant for us and also for our friends. If we could have
got across the previous summer, as we had tried, we would have
been on the shore to receive the Laura with her counts and
countesses, and would thus have saved ourselves six months’
anxiety and privation. It was bad enough for us, but that two
ships had looked for us and had to turn back with nothing
accomplished, must have been a hard blow to our families.

It must indeed be hard for parents to have queer sons, who
spend their lives in weird places where life and death go almost
hand in hand; but it can also be unpleasant for the sons, when
they imagine their parents’ grief and worry through not knowing
what has happened: knowledge of death deals a hard blow, but
it can be overcome gradually; while the nagging torment of
uncertainty never stops.

It was this torture of uncertainty our parents now had to bear
for another whole year. We felt with them and for them, and we
cursed the evil fate that had arranged matters so wretchedly for
us, and for all those who thought of us. We were both silent and
reserved after we had read the two messages from Laura and the
sealer, and it must have been the first occasion in our long time
together, that neither Iver nor I felt urged to let the other know
the thoughts that were preying on our minds: dispirited and
depressed, we crawled into our sleeping bags to seek forgetfulness
in sleep.

Life has to be lived, however hard it may seem, and in a day
or two we had recovered ourselves and uprooted the horrible
cross on the beach, so that the sight of it should not arouse our
dormant despondency each time we looked that way.

Those were dangerous thoughts we struggled with, and we both
realized that the quicker we got them under control the better
for us. After all, we could not relieve our parents’ sorrow,

183

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Thus we combated our thoughts as best we could and gradually
life returned more or less to normal; yet despondency cut deeper
and deeper into our minds and became like an open sore that
ached each time our thoughts sped southwards.

However, things became better and better by degrees, and even
though the sun had long since gone into hibernation, there was
still enough light in the sky for us to be able to hunt hares and
ptarmigan, and now and again bear. Wc spent as much time as
possible out of doors, where there were twinkling, starry heavens
high above us, and away in the distance a wall hung with the
draperies of the Northern Lights. The hut was too cramped for
us, when our thoughts were sad.

Not much happened in the dark days of autumn and winter,
not enough to enable us to have an ordinary conversation about
the day’s happenings, and thus wc had to have recourse to
artificial topics to keep the spectre of silence away.

We discussed politics, as we had the previous winter, but from
opposite platforms, as though I had convinced Iver that the
Conservative policy was better than the one he had been advo¬
cating, while I had had to accept his views as a confirmed
Socialist; that was the only way wc could get a discussion going.
It worked quite well — and wc were always able to taunt the
other good-naturedly by talking back at him some of the nonsense
he had advanced before as the height of political wisdom.

Those silly discussions were apt to come to a halt for lack of
fuel, and when that happened we took to walking round and
round the stove in our little octagonal hut, our heads buzzing
with thoughts, while we wrestled with the hideous question: were
we to spend a fourth winter there ? We could no longer be sure of
anything; we could believe nothing, just hope lhat something
would happen.

Fortunately wc had another equally silly topic of conversation
to fall back on, and that was our dreams, winch cither came to us
naturally or were induced by the simple expedient of eating
porridge at night. That was Ivor’s suggestion, lor he had been

184

THE THIRD WINTER

told that it was an infailable way of dreaming, and thus porridge
became for us a sort of gateway to the wide world.

In that third winter, when we had long since threshed out
every subject we could think of, we clung to dreams as a topic
of conversation, so much so that to all intents and purposes we
lived two sorts of life: one by day when nothing special happened,
and one at night when we could roam far and wide on the wings
of dreams and experience the most glorious adventures.

We went so far in our efforts to regard our dream game as
reality that we never asked each other: ‘What did you dream last
night?’ But, far more concretely: ‘Where were you last night? 5
And so, while we ate our morning porridge, made with mouldy
oatmeal, and drank coffee that seemed to have been in too close
contact with both carbolic and paraffin, we told each other of our
lovely experiences of the night which we had spent in sunshine
and warmth, in town or country, but among other people, both
men and women, and related what had befallen us in their gay
company.

Those dreams could open up unsuspected perspectives and
provide things to talk about for a long time, or matter for quite
sensible discussions. Iver often visited his ancestral farm, and quite
often the first thing he said to me in the morning would be: ‘I was
at Uncle Saren’s again last night, and — 5

That would set us off, and we might spend hours talking of
agriculture and all that we in our wisdom thought touched upon
it. It was a good thing wc did not have a tape recorder in the hut,
for I am sure our cheeks would have blushed in shame if, later in
life, we had ever heard what we had expounded to each other
then as the height of wisdom. Such horrors are happily soon
forgotten, but it still happens that when we meet, a jocular look
will come into Iver’s eye and he will say: ‘Do you remember, you
said ,. .* and then he produces one of my more monstrous
pronouncements from those days, and I shudder.

It was a dismal existence for us two lonely men, especially when
the polar night was all round us with its almost palpable darkness,

185

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

which there was nothing but the glow of the sparkling stars to
mitigate. It was a great day for us when the moon hung large and
round in the black sky and lit up the snow, so that shadows
emerged on the white landscape and the ice crystals gleamed and
glistened — though not so gaily as in the glow of the spring
sunshine.

Then was the time for us to leave our small hut and take a walk
across country with a rifle over our shoulder, for wc might always
meet a bear, a musk-ox or at Worst a miserable hare. It was a
splendid feeling being able to roam about, and when we returned
to the hut after some such lengthy wander in the moonlight, we
often found that something we had experienced on it had
awakened memories of our long sledge journey which now seemed
quite a thing of the past, and we often felt an urge to discuss
whether it would have been better to have done this or that instead
of what we had done.

Ever since then, each time we have dwelt on the last few days
of our hunger march, one great question has always cropped up:
If the other had died, would we, or would we not, have attempted
to save our life by eating him? We arc not sure of the answer,
but what we do know is that the idea occurred to us both, when
the onslaught of hunger was at its worst and we saw how difficult
it was for the other to keep going and doubted whether he would
do so long enough to reach Danmarks Havn and the food that
would save us.

Iver was a bit more definite in his ideas than I, for he main¬
tained that he could not have touched me, unless he had first
removed my hands, at least the fingers.

‘Why on earth?’ I asked in amazement, the first time he told
me that.

Quietly, Ivci replied: ‘I don’t like thinking of it or talking
about it. But it seems to me that hands distinguish humans from
animals. It is with their hands that people can do all the tilings
animals cannot do. To me our humanness lies in our hands.’

I had never thought of that, but there could be something in

186

THE THIRD WINTER

it. Having reached the point of discussing what we would or
would not have done, when we were all but desperate with hunger
and preferred not to carry the rifle that could give death and
rest, we usually tried to find a less macabre topic of conversation
as quickly as we could. The question, however, has remained at
the back of our minds all these years, and just the other day I put
it to Iver once again, He gave me the same answer.

It was not always the frivolous we discussed in our little hut
that looked so tiny where it stood under the steep high mountain
that almost leaned over it. Everything that could bring a little
variety to the uniformity of the long dark days was fervently
welcomed, or almost everything. But even toothache, if not
welcome, at least was effective in brealdng the monotony of our
days. I remember one bout I had. It began in mid-winter and
was made no better when the unhappy thought came to me that
it could perhaps continue until I got home and could have the
tooth drawn. That set me tormenting myself by reckoning out
the awful sum: eight months is two hundred and forty days, and
that is . . . But why go on, as I did, reckoning out how many
hours, minutes and seconds there were in eight months, and
imagining myself having toothache for each one of those innumer¬
able seconds. It was awful and became even worse when Iver, in
all innocence, told me that in the remote rural districts, when it
was a long way to the nearest dentist, they relieved toothache by
pouring schnapps on the tooth. We had no schnapps, but we did
have a little hospital spirit, and we thought that that ought to
have the same effect. And so I took a glass of spirit to get rid of my
toothache.

I never want to go through anything like it again. I stamped
round the hut uttering loud bellows of pain that quite drowned
poor unhappy Iver’s excuses, as he ran round after me assuring
me that he really had thought that it would help and that he had
wished me no harm. I knew that, of course, but it was awful while
it lasted, and then to my amazement the cure worked.

We hunted as often as possible for the sake of having fresh

187

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

food, and so our joy was great when one day in the twilight of
noon we discovered hare tracks in the snow. It was too dark to
follow them up, or to aim with any accuracy, so instead we set
up a trap and hoped that we might entice the hare into it by
strewing mouldy oatmeal up to the mouth and putting a large
heap of it inside behind the drop.

It was most exciting, and for the first couple of days we took it
in turn to keep watch at night, so as to be able to kill the hare at
once, if it went into the trap. It was a long time in obliging, or
else it did not like mouldy oatmeal; but when the snow grew
deeper and the hare more hungry, it was tempted, and great was
our joy when we were aroused by a tremendous commotion
coming from the trap, in which we found a poor hare shivering
with fright.

It looked at us with such frightened eyes that our hearts began
to melt and we talked of letting it out, for wc were aware of a
certain likeness between the hare in the box and ourselves in the
immense space that wc could not get out of.

Christmas was near, however, and the thought of roast hare
for Christmas overpowered our nobler feelings, and the hare died.
A couple of days later wc almost fell over its mate in the snow
and killed that too. Our Christmas fare was thus assured, and we
sal in the hut longing for the day when the sun would have gone
so far south, that it would have to start making its way back
towards the north. Strange as it may seem, wc also longed to hear
the wind howling round our hut’s eight comers, whistling in the
chimney and hurling hard frozen crust-snow at our little window.

That December was uncannily still. Now and again we heard
wind blustering on the mountain, or it would come and screech
round the house and whistle in the chimney, but it only did so for
an instant; the next moment the gust would have blown out to
sea and have gone, leaving everything as unreally still and silenl
as before, so silent that we felt an urge to shout and make a noise,
to try and awaken echoes in that numbing, oppressive stillness.
The silence was broken at times, however, when the pressure of

188

THE THIRD WINTER

distant storms thrust the pack-ice against the land and crushed it
with dull roars, rumbles, crashes and splinterings, and that gave
us a welcome feeling that the world had not come to a standstill
after all, but that there was life and mighty forces moving round us.

Then Christmas came, our third in that part of the world and
the second we had spent alone. I had been looking forward to it
with considerable apprehension, for that is a time when emotions
that are not good for lonely men can so easily gain the upper hand.

Iver was kept busy cooking the hares. We were to have them
both, for we were not economizing on anything at Christmas. He
was also cooking what he hoped would turn into the traditional
Danish rice-pudding, though it could just as easily turn into gruel,
that not being easy to determine beforehand. I was no good at
cooking, so I had made myself responsible for cleaning the hut.
There was not much of that to be done, for the broom had grown
quite bald with age and wc could not use much water, that being
a commodity it cost too much of our precious fuel to produce, and
anyway water was no use on the floor, for any spilt there instantly
turned to ice. So we left the floor alone, rolled up our sleeping
bags, lit our last candle and realized with a sense of satisfaction
that, as we had not had any soap for the last two or three months,
we need not be ashamed of our unwashed faces and hands on that
solemn occasion.

Despite roast hare and the other good tilings we had, things
the Americans had brought there ten. years before and which
time, mould and acquisitive sealers had spared, our Christmas was
as dreary as we had anticipated, and when it drew near the time
when we could decently go to bed, one of us went out stealthily
into the cold and shut the door of the hare-trap. The chances of
getting a hare in the trap were not great, but it was not impossible,
and that night we did wish not to hurt or harm any living creature.,
Even a bear could have come in safety to our door.

No bear came, however, so we earned no haloes. It was a sad
and sorrowful Christmas in every respect, and the only joy Iver
and I could extract from it, was the thought that now at last the

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TWO AGAINST THE ICE

sun was on its way north again. Then we each ate a large helping
of porridge and hoped that wc might have a merry Christmas in
our dreams.

»9o

CHAPTER XVIII

THE LAST SIX MONTHS

The products of lonely men's imaginations — The sun returns for the
third time — Daily life in our winter hut — Dear pensioners — Foxes as
messengers — We attempt a sledge journey — Our strength fails us

Once the winter solstice lay behind us and lighter days were in
the offing, we began to take more pleasure in life. One day Iver
unearthed a hitherto hidden treasure from his private hoard, a
collection of some twenty postcards which he spread out on the
box that served as our table, asking me if I did not think them
lovely. They were. Some were postcards of Copenhagen and these
showed such swarms of people that we, who for two years had
seen no one but each other, became quite giddy at the sight and
wondered if there really still were places in the world where people
swarmed like that.

There were also coloured pictures of the country scene with
thatched farmhouses, golden fields, brown cows and all the rest
of it. One of the cards depicted a large tree in the middle of a
green pasture and a girl enjoying the summer in its shade. It was
a pretty picture: the grass was so green we almost doubted it
could be true, and the sky so blue that it simply cried out: This
is summer in Denmark! And the girl was dressed in bright red:
lovely, the loveliest of Nature’s products.

We nailed that postcard to the wall of the hut, so that the green
grass and the girl in red could warm our hearts, when our
existence up there in the ice and snow and solitude seemed too awful.

The best of the postcards was one Iver had had from a ‘cousin,’
who was attending a school for domestic economy. It too was a
summer scene, and the atmosphere of summer simply welled out
of it in the guise of the many giris in summery dresses photographed
in front of the school building, pretty girls, lovely girls with
smiling eyes and mouths.

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

We looked at that photograph many times, especially when we
were down in the dumps. We sought comfort from those happy-
looking girls, and we discussed them and tried to discover their
characters from the cleanness of their fates, the neatness of their
dresses and the straightness of their limbs. Our two dirty, long¬
haired, bearded heads almost touched as they bent over it, while
wc, a magnifying glass before our eyes and a smoky paraffin lamp
pulled as close as possible, scrutinized all that feminine grace and
beauty, which biightened our little hut by the shore of the polar
sea.

We agreed that we would not touch the girls on the postcards
with our fingers, for our hands were not very elcan, and we were
afraid that some of the dirt might come off and blur the girls’
beautiful features. But as we were to talk with the girls, discuss
them and try to discover their good and bad characteristics, they
each had to have a name, so that we should know of whom we
were speaking. So we named them: there was a Miss Steadfast, a
pretty girl in a white dress and a free and easy attitude; Miss
Affectation, who leaned against a fence doing all she could to look
alluring. There was a Miss Long, a Miss Short, a Miss Sulky, and
Iver’s special flame, little Miss Sunbeam, who looked so young, so
happy and smiling, that it warmed Iver’s all but icy heart.

Wc invented a story about each of these selected girls, and we
promised each other that when we got home we would pay the
school a visit, see the girls, and find out whether the fine characters
we had given them corresponded to reality. I was especially
interested in Miss Steadfast and Ivcr in Miss Sunbeam.

It was indeed a wonderful postcard, and wc put it carefully
away after each time of feasting our eyes upon it. It gave us matter
for many conversations — and food for strange thoughts in hours
of loneliness.

The dark period of that third winter was a hard lime. To me it
seemed darker and more difficult to bear than those that had
preceded it. We again began thinking of going with the drifting
ice south to Angmagssalik, but for that wc must have a boat to

THE LAST SIX MONTHS

take us into the land when wc got there, and our boat lay buried
beneath a snowdrift on Shannon Island. Perhaps, though, we
might be able to salvage the dinghy, when the sun returned and
its blazing light had driven the darkness from the land and its
warmth made it possible for us to work outdoors.

Yes, the sunl How we longed for it. On clear days we never
failed to go outside the hut, and preferably on top, to gaze at the
brightness in the south that day by day crept higher into the sky,
flushing beneath the caress of the distant sun. The life-giving
blaze would soon flare up over the southern horizon, and already
the snow on the southern slopes of the mountains was tinged a
delicate pink, while all that faced north remained cold, blue-white
and forbidding.

The sun would soon be back, and so we had to decide what we
could do to get away by our own resources. Even though we still
thought ourselves pretty stout fellows, who could stand up to most
things, there were various signs showing that the darkness, cold,
solitude and unsuitable diet had affected us. Our joints creaked
more than was good, our gums were perhaps a little redder than
they should have been, and our teeth no longer felt part and
parcel of our jaws. And I had something that could not be right:
a large swelling on one side of my neck.

Was scurvy going to attack us again ?

We had to try to discover what we were still worth, so we set
about preparing for a small sledge journey, that would enable us
to test our strength and see what possibility there was of our
getting away on our own. We began patching up our equipment
and overhauling what we called clothes, only to find that there
was little of the latter left, but the name. But there was a certain
amount of patching we were able to do, and we were also able to
make some new things out of untanned bearskin, which is strong
and as stiff as tinplate. And we also had some sailcloth, No. 00 ,
which is the heaviest made. In the big sailing ships it used to stand
up to hurricanes, so we felt that it ought to make good trousers for
Iver. I cut out some pieces and though Iver looked suspiciously

•93

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

at them, I insisted that they would make warm, strong trousers
for him. I secured them with a saihnaker’s palm and needle, a
good seaman’s job, though not pretty to look at. The resemblance
to trousers was not as great as it perhaps might have been, but
at least there were two legs. Iver put the garment on to please
me, and then asked, appalled, whether I really intended him to
wear it. I did indeed, lor those he had been wearing had been
ripped up to provide a pattern. The new trousers were good
enough, though they might not give as much freedom of movement
as they should have. That, however, was easily remedied: it was
merely that they were a little too tight in the crutch. Iver lay on
his stomach across a parking case and I made him straddle his
legs wide, while I took a sharp knife and made a slit where the
tightness was. I sewed a piece of canvas in and there were the
trousers, as good as we could make them. They were not pretty
and as stiff as the very devil, but they wore — they would have
lasted a hundred years!

We had no lack of work that winter, for there is plenty to do
when there are only two to do the work, plus all the odd jobs
that otherwise you do not need to waste time on. We would be
pretty well done when evening came and the day’s bear’s meat
steak, or bear stew, was eaten and washed down with coffee
tasting of carbolic and paraffin, a taste to which it is even possible
to get used, so great is man’s adaptability.

After coffee we lilted to smoke a cigarette or pipe, while we
discussed the day’s events or what wc would do in the morning.
Whilst we smoked and talked, we coughed appallingly, for our
tobacco was usually dried tea-leaves and our cigarettes were made
of bits of old newspaper, which neither improved the taste nor
lessened the quantity of smoke, so that the little hut filled with
suffocating fumes, especially on calm days. If there was the least
wind blowing, the innumerable draughts would drive the foul air
out through the many leaks in the walls of the hut. Otherwise we
might have asphyxiated ourselves.

About midwinter we acquired a pet in the shape of a fox that

194

THE LAST SIX MONTHS

hunger had turned vegetarian, so that it had let itself be enticed
into the hare-trap with its heap of musty oatmeal. How pretty
and brave it was, when we carried the trap in triumph into the
hut, while the fox looked at us with darting, inquisitive and
fearless eyes.

It was pretty wild the first few days after we had got it out of
the box and tethered it in the hut, but it soon overcame the
trembling anxiety of the wild creature and became quite tame.
We got a lot of pleasure out of our lively little pet, which shortened
many an hour for us, and we were really sorry when, one day, it
seized an irresistible chance to dive out of the door and vanished
into the white distance, dressed in dirty grey fur as a memento a
its short stay in civilization.

When we spoke of our pet, which later came to play a remark¬
able role in our hermitic existence and gave rise to the strangest
hopes and expectations, we called it *Fic,’ in sour recognition of
the fact that it had been very far from house-trained. But then
perhaps we were not the right people to have taught it manners.

When we returned to Bass Rock after a small sledge journey we
made in the spring, we were met by a fox that halted, glanced up
at us with sparkling, almost understanding eyes, and then ran
ahead of us to the hut, where it had obviously been living while
we were away.

That fox was so tame and trusting that, to our joy, it followed
us into the hut almost without hesitation. After a few days’
petting it followed us like a dog when we went out, and if it went
off by itself to attend to its own affairs, it never went so far that it
did not come running back at once when we called and it heard
its name: Prut.

One day I saw fox’s tracks in the incredibly white snow and
naturally assumed that Prut had been out as usual, so I thought
no more about it, till I came to some fine, new-fallen snow and
there saw a distinct groove running parallel with the tracks. I
was almost as surprised as Robinson Crusoe when he first saw
Friday’s footprints, and I stood quite still so as not to lose the

195

G

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

tracks again. I called to Iver and showed him the track: ‘What is
it, Iver?’ I asked. ‘Prut,’ said he unhesitatingly, but then he gave
a start and looked at me with amazement in his eyes: ‘But this
one is trailing a loose string!’

‘Exactly,’ said I, ‘that’s why I called for you, so that you could
see it and draw your own conclusions.’

With teeth chittering with cold we went back to the hut to
discuss the strange thing: we had had two tame foxes in and
around the hut, Fie and Prut, and now suddenly it looked as
though there were three foxes, all of which had been in captivity.
Where had the third one come from?

Out of our loneliness and longing for other people we concocted
a wonderful explanation, namely that there must be people nearby
who had caught the fox and had it on a string, and that it had got
loose and come to us. Perhaps with a message? At all events we
took it for granted that where a fox could come to us, the reverse
must also be possible. So we made a fox’s collar and fastened a
cartridge to it and inside the cartridge put a message to the effect
that we Were living on Bass Rock and would very much like to get
in contact with the other people, who must be somewhere near
by. Then we caught a fox, put the collar on it and let it loose — as
messenger to the people living on the coast, wherever they were,
requesting a reply by fox messenger.

We waited in tense excitement, continually peering out of the
door or window, while we kept saying how lovely it would be if,
as we hoped, the morning brought news that a ship was lying
frozen somewhere near us. That ship, of course, could be none
other than Laura with her Austrian counts aboard: ‘And you’ll
see, Iver, where there are counts, there will be countesses as well!’

And so we waited in greater excitement than ever, waited for
days for the answer that never came. That was strange, we felt,
and, pondering the problem, we became silent and irritable,
because we could not explain what we did not understand.

One day Iver began laughing in a way that I knew was the
prelude to an unexpected, and usually unpleasant, question. It

196

THE LAST SIX MONTHS

was a surprise too, when eventually he asked it: ‘Don’t you think,’
he said, ‘that there’s a danger our senses may be a bit queer?
That we are seeing things that don’t exist — and believing in
something that isn’t there?’

‘Do you mean, that we’re going off our heads?’ I asked in
amazement, and though he energetically denied having meant
that, my question was not unjustified.

There may indeed have been something in it, for all our hopes
exploded some days later when, determined to get to the bottom
of the fox business for the sake of our peace of mind, we caught
the foxes which we thought were messengers. It turned out that
the foxes we caught, or shot, were our lodgers of the winter —
and Prut was a fox we had not seen before.

That was a queer business, and wc felt slightly ashamed when
eventually we gave up hope of receiving a fox messenger from
the ship with the counts and countesses. But, queer and shaming
though it undoubtedly was, it was useful in that it gave us some¬
thing to think and talk about at a time when life was pretty
dismal.

And anyway it was of little importance whether we saw things
or not.

Winter raged itself out with a few violent storms that veiled
everything in clouds of snow. Otherwise it was dead calm with
ringing frost, sparkling stars and lovely Northern Lights flaring
and billowing across the sky and giving a little light to the earth.
And then there was also the moon to rejoice us; small and faint¬
hearted it was in its early phase, and scarcely noticed among the
sparkling galaxy of the stars and waves of colourful Northern
Lights. But it was the more welcome and dominant when it had
grown to more than half, and glorious when at the full it
sailed across the swarming throng of the stars, gleaming like freshly
cleaned silver and enabling us to make longish trips into the
mountains or across the sea, until it waned and was again
swallowed up by the polar darkness that is more oppressive than
storm or cold, more than loneliness and uncertainty.

197

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

We had been pleased to see the sun again after our first long
winter night. We sent it a kindly nod as though it were an old
friend whom we were welcoming home after a trip abroad. The
next year, it was with ineffable joy and delight that we two
freezing creatures had seen it return, shining blood-red through a
veil of mist filled with ice crystals that gleamed and glittered in
the air. Now, when for the third time we awaited its return, it was
in a state bordering on worship. We stood, two shadowless
figures, on the most southerly knoll, gazing out across the shadow¬
less snowy landscape and waiting for the blaze in the south to be
kindled and conjure blue shadows out of our dead world.

Ivcr and I were as silent as though at our devotions. We stood
close together, our eyes on the horizon, where the blue of the sky
and the white of the sea met. We stared across the dull white sea
at the blue heavens and the conflagration away there in the south.
The thin frost-smoke hanging over the open leads between the
floes was fiery-red, and growing redder and redder. Then the
blaze flared up violently; the colours became brighter and at the
same time warmer, and then the veiling mist was split by a shaft
of fire that dealt the long, dark polar night a mortal wound and
stained the snow deep pink, as though with blood from some
noble creature.

The sun had come back to us again!

We had no words to say. We just stood still and stared at the
magnificence of it. The world had become so lovely, so alive with
shadows and light, and even our sallow faces were brushed with
a golden glow. Our breath was like fine mist in front of our
mouths; it gathered around Iver’s head — and, I suppose, round
mine as well — like a halo, which glowed with all the colours of
the rainbow.

Now that the sun was back we felt frisky and strong, and we
determined to test our strength with a small sledge trip before we
began preparing for a possible journey by boat and ice to
Angmagssalik, As the weather seemed settled now that the sun
was back, we put our shoulders into the traces and started off

198

THE LAST SIX MONTHS

with high courage — and speediiy regretted it, for unfortunately
we discovered all too quickly that our strength was far from what
it had been. The labour of pulling the heavy sledge was almost
beyond us, and after two days it became more than we could
manage, and we had to turn and go back.

As we could not pull the sledge even with a small load, there
was no question of our being able to haul the load we should need
to have if we were to try drifting south with the ice.

It was bitter to have to admit to ourselves that we were no
longer able to do what, in our arrogance, we had thought would
be relatively easy. Our hopes of being able to get away by our¬
selves were dashed completely, and we had to accept the fact that
we must just wait for a ship to come and rescue us, wait a short
time or a long, but just wait. And if the wait was a very long time,
say another year, it would undoubtedly also be for all eternity.

We went to another small island, Walrus Island, and on the
shore there we found a large piece of drift timber. Before leaving
to return to Bass Rock we erected this piece of timber in a pile of
stones, and I tried to carve our initials into the hard wood, so
that any who might come that way would know where we were.
My knife was not sharp enough to give the letters the depth
necessary, if they were to be distinct and easily legible; nor did
we have a pencil; but a rifle bullet being of lead proved serviceable,
and, having rubbed one to a point on a stone, I was able to
print on the white wood

E.M. BASS ROCK. 11/4. 1912
letters that perhaps were what saved us, for they were seen that
summer by a sealer.

That done, we toiled back to our little, dark untidy hut and
hoped that the summer of 1912 would be considerably better than
the preceding one.

199

CIIArTER XIX

HOPES FULFILLED

Bears and hem-hunting — I operate on my neck with a sheath knife —
Doubt arid depression — What fools can quarrel over — A ship comes —
Journey and arrival home

Over the years we had had a number of adventures with bears,
honest, decent creatures on the whole, though often led into
harm’s way by their insatiable curiosity. I remember how once
we sent a shot after a bear so far away that the bullet struck the
snow a good way behind it. The bear, hearing the report of the
rifle and the thud of the bullet, could not resist turning back to
investigate. It walked towards us, snuffing as it came, as though
bent on finding out what it was that had come flying after it.

That proved our opportunity and the bear’s undoing, for we
were able to come within proper range and also to get broadside
on to it. Thus, the next time the rifle spoke, the bullet drove deep
into the bear’s chest.

Once —■ but that was the only occasion — it was touch and go
with us. That was just after we had had to give up the plan of
drifting south with the ice, and we had gone back to the hut on
Shannon to leave word there that we were waiting for a ship on
Bass Rock. A bear had taken up quarters in a snowdrift up
against the hut, and when we arrived and began breaking up
packing-cases for firewood, the bear became angry and turned
against us, Iver just caught a glimpse of the bear through the
half-open door and hurriedly slammed it to. Unfortunately the
door opened inwards, so Iver set his back against it to keep the
brute out, shouting to tell me that a bear was attacking and that
I must get ready to shoot as quickly as I could.

That, however, was easier said than done, for my rifle was
frozen, the cartridges were frozen, and there was too much hoar¬
frost filling the chamber. When I loaded the rifle, the bolt would

900

HOPES FULFILLED

not close properly and I feared, certainly with every justification,
that the locking mechanism would not hold if I fired a shot. So I
seized an axe as my weapon against the bear, which w’as hissing
and roaring wickedly, and playing such a tattoo on the door that
we expected it to be sent flying into the hut at any moment. Iver
was still braced against the door and yelling at me to get the rifle
right.

Then there was a moment’s quiet, and we breathed a sigh of
relief and hoped that the bear had raised the siege; but that was a
vain hope, for a few seconds later we heard it snarling just outside
the hut and I realized that if it hit the door now, it would strike
so hard that neither clasp, hinges nor Iver could keep the bear out.

It did strike hard, a decisive blow; yet before the door crashed
in and Iver was flung across the hut, a pan of water spilled on to
the red-hot coals in the stove, enveloping us in steam and smoke.
I had already shouted to Iver to take his rifle and fire, but not
to stop and look to see if it were loaded — and let’s hope that it
was! — and we were now standing side by side. Ten feet away
was the bear with its forepaws inside the hut and a highly aston¬
ished look on its face, as it stared at a half-tumbled stove, a lot of
sizzling embers and hissing steam, and two live creatures the like
of which it had never seen.

Luckily Iver’s rifle was loaded. In the confined space of the
little hut the report was ear-splitting. When the bullet entered
the bear’s chest, the fur billowed like a field of com under a gust
of wind. The bear stood for a moment shaking its head dejectedly,
then all at once it collapsed with blood gushing from the wound,
its nose and its mouth, stone-dead. The tension had been con¬
siderable, and as the bear died we both subsided on to a packing
case and sat there wiping off the sweat that had sprung out on
our foreheads, even though cold air was pouring in through the
open door from the sunlit outside and condensing into opaque
mist in our dark and clammy den.

Spring came, and the migrating birds passed overhead on their
way north to the plains of Shannon Island and the fertile land

aoi

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

round Danmarks Havn. None settled on our Bass Rock, for there
was only stone to be had there, none that is except the snow
buntings which did not seem to mind its sterility. Those small
pretty birds were a great joy and encouragement to us, as they
hopped about, chirruping and pecking at the few blades of
sprouting grass and picking up what oatmeal the hares had not
had time to eat.

We both of us wanted livening up, for neither of us felt well.
I had a nasty tumour on my neck, a sort of malignant boil that
had plagued me since the darkest days of winter, and it was
growing almost from day to day and hurting so badly that some¬
thing had to be done. But what? Ivor suggested hot compresses
and we tried that, but the compresses became cold so quickly that
they did not help, rather the reverse.

I had long been toying with the idea of cutting a hole in the
tumour, for it was not a piopcr boil; but it is one thing to come
to the conclusion that such a thing ought to be done, and quite
another to put it into practice, especially with conditions as they
were in. our dirty hut. I knew, or thought I knew — which
amounted to the same thing ■— that there was a network of
nerves and sinews near the place where the tumour was largest.
What would happen if I put a knife to my neck, pressed it in and
perhaps severed those sinews and nerves? It seemed to me that
the consequences might be disagreeable. Also I had no idea where
the arteries were. Thus there was plenty to make one hesitate
about such an undertaking.

Added to all these more or less real dangers, there was the
further obstacle that I had nothing but my sheath knife with
which to perform the operation. This was the knife 1 used at
table, and it was also brought into service for skinning bear, or
shaping a piece of wood or any other special purpose; but it was
not especially sharp, and, though no doubt I could have found a
stone that would have done as a whetstone, whenever I thumbed
its rusty edge, as I did many times a day, I always decided to
postpone matters.

303

HOPES FULFILLED

Iver refused to have anything to do with the operation. If
there was to be one, I must perform it myself. And always, just
as I had made up my mind to do it, I found a fresh excuse to put
it off: such as that we had no mirror, so that I could not see
where I was making, or should make, the cut. When it comes to
it, of course, you do not need such a thing; on a calm day a
puddle can do instead — until the blood begins to flow; but that
I only discovered, when it started dripping into the water.

I spent a day or two sharpening my knife and then, as the sun
was shining and the air relatively warm, I had a dress rehearsal,
mirroring myself in a puddle and drawing a piece of stick across
the place on my neck where I considered, the cut should be made.
This was not easy; it is, in fact, quite difficult to follow direction
in a reflected picture. Then, feeling I could wait no longer, I
pulled myself together, gave the knife an extra whetting, nodded
to Iver and saw that he had some cloth from an old tent ready for
a bandage, stared at my image in the puddle and pressed die
knife into my neck, finding to my amazement that I did not feel
so very much. The moment the blood and pus began dripping
into the puddle, the surface became ruffled and quite useless as a
mirror. I had just sufficient presence of mind left to press the
knife in and draw it downwards — then everything went dark,
and Iver bandaged the wound as well as he could.

That operation brought me relief and the wound never became
infected, but when I reached home a few months later and the
doctors got hold of me, they shook their heads in horror and said
something about only a fool being able to get away with what ten
wise men would hesitate to do.

We were looking forward to the early summer; to the days
when the ship could come, though for all our longing we had not
been able to exorcize doubt with its insidious f We tried to
banish that horrible word from our minds — of course the ship
would come — but it is easier to doubt than to believe, and by
degrees, as high summer drew near and our expectations grew, we
both became more nervy and irritable than we had ever been

203

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

before. We realized that we could not endure another winter.
Neither our health nor our minds could bear the heavy burden of
another period of darkness, and also wc had used almost all the
provisions, clothes and ammunition which were absolutely
essential for the maintenance of life.

We tried to keep ourselves busy with hunting, or we walked
ourselves tired by continually going up the mountain to look at
the ice, or rather the water between the ice. Conditions did not,
in fact, look so bad, much better than the previous year, but a
storm could dash all our hopes in the course of a few hours. And
what then? The spectre of doubt was at once beside us whispering:
‘What will you do, if the ship cannot come in this year either?
Will you take up the struggle for continued existence, or will you
give up ?’

Wc looked at each other and said nothing, for we each had
difficulty enough in keeping our own thoughts in check. Silence
under such conditions, however, was not good, for it could become
oppressive and give birth to evil ideas. Nothing, of course,
happened, or could happen, during those two months between
spring and summer. We had to stay where wc were, where we
knew every stone, every light effect, every sound; thus an outside
influence strong enough to break down any wall of silence that
might arise between us was a most unlikely thing. Where could it
come from ? Wc had to be very wary, much more so than before,
and although we had been alone together for nearly two and a
half years without once quarrelling, it would not have taken much
for us to have let slip some thoughtless word that would have been
deeply wounding.

Our nerves were worn thin, thinner than ever before. We were
hag-ridden by the fear of having to spend another year there, and
each tune we saw the scattered state of the pack ice and hope of
the ship’s arrival welled up within us, dreadful doubt was at once
there whispering.

And then, of course, Iver must needs do what he should have
avoided at all costs, and say things that shattered the calm for

304

HOPES FULFILLED

which we had struggled so hard. It was morning just as I woke.
I was on the point of saying something comforting to Iver, who
was standing at the stove making a sort of porridge that tasted
awful but was filling; but I never got it said, for just at that
moment Iver began singing a song I had not heard before, a song
about my girl and me, that is the girl from the postcard, Miss
Steadfast, my sweetheart.

I listened, surprised and rather hurt at my old friend’s complete
lack of loyalty; for the song that Iver must have composed during
the night was an insult to my honour and that of my girl. There
I sat in my sleeping bag, gazing in amazement at the singer
stirring his porridge — and feeling a wall of silence growing up
between us, an insurmountable wall behind which Iver stood, his
stirring hand moving more and more slowly, while the smile in
his eyes vanished and was replaced by an expression of sorrow
and shame.

Iver passed me a bowl of porridge: ‘It’s better today,’ he said
with a little catch in his voice. I took the bowl without a word.

We ate our porridge without speaking, and not a word was said
as we did the day’s jobs. Then Iver went out, and I too went out
and up on to the mountain and looked out across the ice; but
never so much as a nod did I give the man who stood only a few
yards away pretending to be looking across the ice as well, while
he shot stealthy glances at me. We returned to the hut without
having exchanged a word or even said that the ice looked better
than the day before, a fact that normally would have made us
jubilant.

Iver took exceptional pains with our bear steak for dinner and
handed it to me with a queer beseeching expression in his eyes.
And I ? Yes, I honestly did try to find the words that would break
the barrier of silence, and I felt ashamed at being so silly, but I
could not find anything to say, or to do, that would break the
curse of silence.

When the time came, we crept into our sleeping bags without
having said a word to each other all day long. I could Hear that

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

Ivor lay awake most of the night, as I did too, filled with shame
and despising myself for not having been able to find a word to
break the horrible noose that silence had drawn round us and was
pulling tighter and tighter.

When the sun was again peering in at our little window and it
was time to turn out, we were still silent as we sat, each on his
packing case, staring despondently into the air. In the end Iver
stood up, wrote something on a piece of paper and went out.

All of a sudden 1 felt so utterly alone and forlorn that I shud¬
dered. I was actually making for the door, intending at last to
break the stupid, dangerous silence, when I heard Iver’s feet
crunching on the snow; he was coming back to the hut. Contrary
to our habit lie knocked on the door, hesitantly.

I knew what that meant and called: ‘Come in!’ The first
words cither of us had spoken for almost two days. Then Iver
opened the door ajar, threw a piece of paper in through the crack
and said in a rather quavering voice:

‘Here’s a letter from Denmark!’

The next moment he was gone again and the door shut, but
on the floor lay a piece of paper, shining and lifting the weight
from my heart, for I knew what it meant and was: an apology for
things said without thinking, a talisman that would extinguish
the embers of smouldering hate and break the awful silence.

I picked up the little, note and read: ‘I am so sorry I took your
girl. Take her back, take my four as well, take the whole damned
lot — only be cheerful again!’

And that was the man I had been on the point of hating! I
suddenly wanted to see him, more than I have ever wanted to
see anyone, and he was outside in the cold waiting anxiously for
a word of friendship.

I spoke it and we laughed to each other, promising never again
to let ourselves be caught in the evil circle of silence, Then Iver
cooked a meal of the best the house could produce, which was
not very grand. We sat on our packing-cases looking happily at
each other and thinking of our friendship that had held through

306

HOPES FULFILLED

the bad times when Death itself walked with ns. To think that a
few thoughtless silly words could have wrecked that friendship,
had in fact done so for a few bitter hours, during which silence
had grown up between us and our thoughts become malevolent.

Together we went up the mountain and looked out across the ice
and the water, helping each other drive doubt underground, so
that it left us in peace for some days. We again went hunting bear,
hares or birds together, for our store of provisions had shrunk
unpleasantly swiftly down to the bare minimum, and we had not
had any fresh meat for some time. We were badly in need of
fresh food, for our muscles were gradually stiffening, our joints
growing tender, our gums red and swollen, our teeth loose. We
were again threatened with scurvy.

We saw neither hares nor bear, not even a seal, but that did
not make our need of meat any less; on the contrary, it grew and
grew, until we wondered whether we ought not to have recourse
to our last reserve, a flock of auks which had babies upon the
mountain-side? We could not bring ourselves to that, however, so
we tightened our belts instead, drank our coffee that smelt of
carbolic and paraffin, smoked our stinking cigarettes, ate our
musty biscuits and mildewed oatmeal, talked about the ship that
could come any moment now, for the ice was broken and the
sea navigable. The hour of our release must be at hand.

The next morning we decided that we would shoot the auks
after all, and eventually we got them within range and in a place
where the wind would make the dead bodies drift towards us. We
lay side by side, looked at the auks and then peered out to sea in
case there was a ship rounding the outer headland, which would
have meant that the auks could have been allowed to live and go
on giving their babies the food they were collecting for them with
so much squawking.

How loud would not the squawking be, we thought, in a few
hours’ time, when the parent birds were in our pot? We could
not bear the thought of the plaintive cries that would grow louder
and louder and only stop, when the babies could cry no more and

ao7

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

died of starvation. So we lowcicd our guns: ‘Let them live till
tomorrow. We have gone hungry before. Perhaps a ship will come
tonight.’

We felt easy in our minds and proud of our magnanimous
action as wc walked back to our dark little hut, crept into our
sleeping bags and said, as we had so many times before, perhaps
the ship will come tonight?

Some hours later Ivor was wakened by a commotion outside
the hut. Thinking it was a bear rummaging among the cases and
things wc had lying outside, he seized his rifle — wc badly needed
meat now and a bear would be very nice to have. The commotion
woke me as well and, seeing Ivor making for the door with his
rifle, I kicked my sleeping-bag away, seized my rifle and ran
barefoot for the door — which suddenly opened and outside we
saw a group of men headed by a tall broad-shouldered chap
who held out his hand: ‘Give us your rifles, boys, wc come as
friends.’

Iver and I stood there side by side, each dressed in a thick
woollen vest and nothing else but the rifles in our hands. We did
not say a word, but put our rifles down and seated ourselves on
the nearest case: the tension of two and a half years was over at
last. Then words came, and the first were: ‘What a good thing we
didn’t shoot the auks yesterday!’

Then we said good-day to the big man and his companions.
He was Paul Lillenaes, skipper and owner of Sjoblomlen , a little
scaler which lay a short way out among the drifting icc on water
that was alive with sun-glitter. He told us that he had been on
his way home after an unsuccessful season on the coast of East
Greenland, when he had sighted a piece of driftwood set up on
the outer point of an island, and it had occurred to him that it
might possibly have been erected by us to show that we were alive.
He had lowered a dinghy and rowed ashore, seen the letters
E.M. the date and Bass Rock, printed on the bleached wood —
and known that in all probability he would return home with a
profitable catch after all, for the Danish government had offered

308

HOPES FULFILLED

a reward of 10,000 Crowns to anyone who found us dead or alive,
or who could supply satisfactory information as to our fate. That
money was now his.

If Sjoblomsten had come eight days later, she would have been
too late, for the Greenland Company’s ship Godlhaab was also on
the East Greenland coast in 1912, landing I. P. Koch a little
farther north, and on her return journey she touched at Bass Rock
to see if she could find us, but we were then on our way to Norway.

According to our reckoning Sjoblomsten came on July 17, but
apparently we had lost a couple of days somewhere on our travels.
That was not really surprising, remembering that we had had to
march day and night and just sleep when we could walk no
farther. Two days were nothing compared with the 865 that Iver
and I had spent alone together. Having discovered that our July
17 was the rest of the world’s July 19, we skipped a couple of
days in our diaries, called the day Thursday instead of Monday
and were once more up to date.

It was a lovely day in the early morning of which Sjoblomsten
arrived. The weather was as fine and summery, as befitted the
happiness we all felt: Lillenaes and his crew at their ‘catch,’ and
we at our rescue. At first we could not realize that a ship really
had come and that our lengthy solitude was over, and it only got
properly into our heads when Lillenaes, smiling, said: ‘Well, lads,
put your clothes on and — let’s go home 1’

‘Go home’ — how sweet that sounded in our ears.

We had never thought of how we were dressed till then. They
laughed and laughed as Iver struggled into his stiff sail-cloth
trousers j and while they waited they had a look round our little
hut. On one wall was a picture from a magazine: it was called
‘Four Generations’ and depicted King Christian IX, Frederick
VIII and Crown Prince Christian with his baby son in his arms,
the present King Frederick IX.

‘Well, he’s dead now,’ said Paul Lillenaes, pointing to Frederick
VIII. ‘And Titanic rammed an iceberg and went down with oyer
a thousand lives lost. And the Danish East India Co. has built a

309

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

large steamer that isn’t a steamer at all, for it’s supposed to be
driven by a new kind of motor.’

We were once more in touch with civilization, hearing news
from the great world beyond East Greenland. And again we were
objects of criticism, for a man came walking up from the shore
and, when he saw our hut and our cooking utensils, he wrinkled
his nose and said: ‘Ugh, what a mess!’ We had never thought
about the mess, but then the man was the little sealer’s cook and
steward. I had seen him first as the door opened, but only for an
instant, for at the sight of us in our vests, rifle in hand, he had
turned, run for the dinghy and jumped into it.

When he now returned to the hut I asked him in all innocence
why he had run away the moment they found us. ‘And you ask
that?’ he said. ‘You would have run for it too, if you could have
seen how dangerous you looked.’

Maybe he was right; certainly Lillcnacs and his men had
thought we might be dangerous to approach, crazed by the
solitude or something of the kind. ‘That was why I reached out
for your rifles,’ Lillenaes told me later, ‘you can never tell what
a lunatic with firearms will do.*

While the Norwegians tidied the hut and the ground round it,
Iver and I made a little tour of the place saying goodbye to our
household gods — and feeling strangely restless and dull-witted.
We could hardly realize that it was all over, that the time we
had spent by ourselves, almost two and a half years, was now at
an end. In all that long while we had stuck together; we had
rejoiced together when there was anything to rejoice about; we
had sighed together when the days and the outlook were black;
we had starved together and frozen together; our lives had now
and again hung on a thread, but only once had there been any
real disagreement or enmity between us — and that over a girl
on a postcard!

We now walked close together and nodded for the last time to
all the stones we knew so well, to the mountains, to Shannon in
the distance, where we had suffered such grievous disappointment

aio

HOPES FULFILLED

the year before, and to the ever-changing pack-ice. But all the
while we kept one eye on the little sealer and laughed joyfully: so
the ship had come after all — now our journey home could begin
in earnest

From the mountain-side we heard the peeping of the baby auks
and angry screeches, and the parent birds were continually
flinging themselves off the nests and diving for more food, the
air whistling in their wings as they passed. Iver and I looked at
each other, and I believe we were both thinking the same thing:
Perhaps the ship came last night because we spared the birds
yesterday.

So perhaps Paul Lillenaes was right in thinking that the
loneliness might have made us a bit peculiar.

As we rowed out to the ship, I looked back at my dear Green¬
land, while Iver feasted his eyes on litde Sjeblomsten. Suddenly he
nudged me. His eyes were round with amazement: ‘Look there!’
he said. ‘There are more of them yet!’ He pointed at the ship,
where five men stood to receive their strange passengers: first
seven men ashore, then five on board, that made twelve in all!
Iver was right, it was a whole host that had invaded Bass Rock.

The engine room telegraph rang and the ship woke to life and
began moving ahead. A few days later we saw the mountains of
Norway above the eastern horizon, then wooded islets with pretty
little cottages, rowboats filled with waving smiling people, a town,
Aalesund, and to port a fisherman’s house with a girl in a red
dress standing in the doorway, shading her eyes with her hands to
get a better view of the weird strangers who were arriving. And
Iver seized my arm in a fierce grip and said: ‘Look, there’s a real
girl!’

She was real all right, and when we got ashore there were
others, many more. There was quite a crowd of them on the
quay, all come to see if there were truth in the rumour that
somehow or other had arrived ahead of Sjoblomlen — for those
were the days before wireless — the rumour that she was coining
home with a good catch: two men who for two and a half years

si i

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

had lived as Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday on the harsh coast
of East Greenland.

It was an extraordinary experience having a bath again after
three years, and the town’s hairdresser had a remarkable expe¬
rience when he had to remove our wigs of matted reindeer hair,
grease and odicr things, a difficult task which was closely watched
through the window by a collection of joyous children.

Telegrams arrived — one of the first was from King Christian
IX — telegrams from family and friends, from many people
whom we knew and did not know, an overwhelming number. We
had new outfits to replace the weird garments we had made for
ourselves out of sail-cloth and bits and pieces of cloth and skins.
The sun shone, birds twittered, the trees were green and lovely
flowers grew in the garden where the Danish consul welcomed us
back to life with a glass of champagne.

Two days later we reached Copenhagen with the Oslo boat: a
skipper without a ship and an engineer without an engine. Our
companions, whom we had last seen on the inland ice, were there
to welcome us, as were the members of the Committee in top
hats, a couple of ministers, one of the King’s secretaries, and two
sets of parents standing staring up at the bridge and the two sons
they had long since given up for lost, but who were now miracu¬
lously restored to them.

Given up ? I wonder.

I was told later that father had gone to meet every Greenland
boat that came to Copenhagen and had asked for news from
Greenland — of the two who had not come back. But there never
was any news, and father had walked away from the ship and the
little crowd of happy parents come to welcome sons home from
Greenland, his head well up. And mother? I do not know whether
she had given me up, but I scarcely think so. She did not like to
speak of the long time when she had not heard from me and must
have suffered. The treasurer of the Committee, however, told me
that when he received the telegram announcing our arrival at
Aalcsund, he naturally telephoned at once to my parents’ home;

aia

HOPES FULFILLED

Mother answered and he gave her the happy news.

‘But she never asked for details,’ said the treasurer, ‘and I was
rather surprised when, after a short silence, she interrupted my
well-meant congratulations to ask: ‘Are they both there?’ I
thought that a strange question coming from your mother, to
whom the fact that you had come home must surely have been
the main thing.’

Perhaps. Later, I told mother what the treasurer had said and
she explained why she had asked that question. ‘Naturally I was
happy that you had come back — that was my immediate
thought. And very happy. But then I thought of Iversen’s
mother — and that I should have rather you had not come back
— than that you should have come back without him!’

Poor mother, she had a hard time of it during those two years
when our fate was undecided, for she had gradually come to know
enough about conditions on journeys of that kind to be able to
imagine it all. And that, too, was why she was not able to rejoice
at my homecoming until she knew that we were both safe.

I said nothing, for I understood mother; only my thoughts went
back to an incredibly distant past when hunger, pain and exhaus¬
tion had almost overpowered us — and Iver had asked me to
carry our one and only rifle.

313

POSTSCRIPT

Time and again I have been asked what North-east Greenland is
like, and now I have tried to answer that question. As I have
described it in this book, such was North-east Greenland when it
was discovered, explored and mapped, and such it must have
been for millions of years since it was first clothed in its cap of ice
and life there was exterminated. 1 in my simplicity never doubted
that it would remain thus for all eternity: a harsh and desolate
land without any means of supporting life, for even the Eskimoes
on the coast had died out.

That I was so utterly wrong in my view of North-east Green¬
land’s eternal immutability was due first and foremost to the
invention and improvement of the internal combustion engine.
At the beginning of this century the petrol engine was a heavy,
clumsy and unreliable thrall in man’s service, yet in the course of
a couple of decades it became the master of mankind or, at least,
a fantastic creator of the energy without which the modern society
cannot exist.

Directly or indirectly the motor plays a part in all man’s
undertakings. It makes electricity and provides the power that
drives huge ships across the seven seas, and, amongst many other
things, it has been the cause of clever technicians being able to
realize man’s oldest and most fantastic dream and hankering: to
rise into the air and conquer space.

From the time the principle of the first aeroplane was discovered
its development has been explosive, until we have arrived at the
machines of today that fly at a thousand miles an hour and more
and are driven by engines of tens of thousands of horse power.

The modem aeroplane upset a not very gifted prophet’s view
of the immutability of the status of North-cast Greenland and
reduced his eternity to a few decades, or to be exact from 1910,
when I still believed that there were things that could endure for
ever, until about 1950 when one such lone monster went flying
over the desolate country round the mouth of Danmarks Fjord,

POSTSCRIPT

where I had experienced the most bitter hours of my long life and
seen the expected number of my days shrink to a few weeks,
months at the most.

In the belly of this monster were comfortable, soft chairs in
which sat officials, who, as they flew along at a low but safe height,
looked for level stretches of ground in the wilderness. Those men
had the power and the intention to violate the immutability of
the wilderness and say where they could and should build a
landing-ground, thus putting an end to the abiding desolation.

They found what they sought near the place where Iver and
I had rested in igio and spoken frankly of the future, that for us
could scarcely be a future at all. Once the site of the landing-
ground had been fixed, a host of other huge aeroplanes followed
in the wake of the first, winging their way from Thule across the
inland ice to that place on the most northerly and most desolate
coast of East Greenland, which those officials had selected. These
new ’planes brought technicians and craftsmen who marked out
the site of a whole little town, and tliis was built with materials
brought from Thule by air, two thousand tons or thereabouts.

By die following year there had been built in the wilderness a
town with a landing ground for large aeroplanes, a power station
and wireless station with its cobweb of shiny copper wires stretched
between tall wireless masts, from which messages could reach
every country in the world with the speed of thought.

Scattered about the ground were warm, well-built houses with
central heating and all that goes with a modern society, including
a telephone from house to house, a hobbies workshop and a
billiard saloon.

When all was ready and the houses furnished, thirty young
Danes were flown to that, the most northerly weather and
telegraph station in the world, and there they soon settled down
and attended to their jobs just like their less adventurous fellow-
countrymen at home in Denmark.

Once a month a ’plane from Thule touches down on the landing
ground at Station North, so that its staff can get their letters,

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

newspapers and small 1 rifles that may have been forgotten, and at
Christmas a ’plane, like a modern Father Christmas, brings
presents to all the young men in what once was desolate land.

Each summer an aerial bridge seven hundred miles long is
thrown across the inland ice from Thule to Station North, in order
to supply those dwellings in the wilds, for there is no other way
in whie.li the 600 tons of food and other things required may be
conveyed there. As well as these supplies, oil for the motors and
central heating must be tiiken there, and materials for repairing
this and that, or replacements for those who may have had enough
of life in the wilderness and wish to exchange it for the noise and
attractions of the city.

Not even the winter-darkness is what it used to be, for light
from electric lamps pours from innumerable windows, and electric
lights are hung between the houses, so that those who are abroad
run no risk of losing their way in the dark.

It is only forty-odd years sinee Ivor and I lay in a tent very near
that spot, speaking gravely of life and death and presuming that
the desolation we saw all round us would remain complete and
utter as it was for all eternity. The fantastic development that has
taken place was as impossible to foresee in 1910 as it would be to
count the myriads of the stars twice and get the same result.

The improbable is nonetheless a reality now — and the impos¬
sible has been made possible by the magic powers of technique,
especially of the motor.

Danmarks Havn lies some seven hundred miles to the south of
Station North, and when wc two famished and exhausted way¬
farers in 1910 stumbled across the level grassy expanse towards the
tumbledown little hut that to us represented the height of all
earthly magnificence and security, it seemed to us that we had
reached an oasis in the wilds.

We found the countryside lovely and good, but never in our
wildest imagination could we have dreamed that about 1950 there
would be built at that very place a large meteorological station,
the staff of which looked in amazement at the remains of our

216

POSTSCRIPT

little hut and indulgently shook their heads as much as to say:
Fancy people being able to live under such conditions!

Iver and I were very glad of those conditions, but we can also
well understand the wondering shakes of the head of those young
people, for they have a chef employed at Station North to cook
their food and bake their bread, and they are waited upon by an
immaculate mess boy. They live in large warm houses that have
no leaks or draughts; they have motors and electricity to work for
them on the big wireless station from which — as from ten other
Greenland meteorological stations — detailed weather reports are
daily sent to Copenhagen, which then passes on to the meteorolo¬
gists of Northern Europe the basic information on which to work
out the weather forecast for the following day, forecasts which
play an important part for almost all our activities, not least for
the pilots of the big transatlantic air runs, who study the weather
charts so as to get an idea of the weather they are likely to
encounter on the long flight between the two hemispheres.

Desolate East Greenland has thus acquired great importance
for civilized Northern Europe, and the clever author of the age-old
‘Mirror of the King’ song has been proved right in his assertion
that the weather that Northern Europe has, comes from Greenland
whose ‘ice-crowned pate’ makes the winds and weather in Iceland
and Europe. The internal combustion engine had to be invented
before we could see that the ancient bard was right about Green¬
land’s influence on the weather, and act accordingly.

To the parts where Iver and I waited so long for a ship, each
year now brings several motor vessels with relief crews and supplies
for the Danish weather-reporting stations along the coast. Other
ships come with the scientists who for the last thirty years have
been working in the lovely fjords of East Greenland, investigating
the land’s flora and fauna and, not least, its geological structure.

Other Danish and Norwegian vessels come with more or less
experienced trappers who, with the blessing and support of the
Government, try to wrest from the skinflint land enough for a
livelihood — but for all their industry there is little butter for their

TWO AGAINST THE ICE

daily bread. Among these experienced, purposeful men you will
also find young adventurers, who have taken jobs for a year or two
to be trappers and hunt bears and foxes, shoot musk-oxen and
birds.

The northern coast of East Greenland is thus almost crowded
nowadays, and although the trappers could never have kept going
without economic support from the Danish and Norwegian
governments, they have now built a large number of huts all along
the coast from Danmarks Havn to Scorcsby Sound — either quite
large huts in which several men can live under more or less
comfortable conditions, or small huts lying close enough together
for the trapper to be able to journey from one to the other without
much equipment, when he wants to inspect his fox traps.

The small huts are only intended for one person, and some of
them only provide a rather miserable shelter; but nonetheless there
arc now huts all along the coast, and for those accustomed to that
sort of travel and wlio do not expect too much in the way of
comfort, there can nowadays be little difficulty in journeying by
ski or sledge from Danmaiks Havn to Scorcsby Sound.

The plan that Ivcr and I hugged and brooded over in our
solitude and aching longing for other people, was actually put into
effect in 1924-25, when the cotmtry’s own children, Greenlanders
from Angmagssalik, were given the opportunity to live at the
newly created colony at Scorcsby Sound, from which, either alone
or as sledge-guides for Danish scientists, they have made long
journeys northwards along the coasts on which their ancestors
travelled, hunted and lived in the nldcn days long before
Europeans came.

On the mighty fjord that is Scorcsby Sound there now live
some 350 Greenlanders who all came from round Angmagssalik,
and good wooden houses have been built here and there along the
coast, often on the ruins of old dwellings. These houses are
generally grouped in small communities, where the women and
children live their placid lives in continual waiting for the bread¬
winner to return with the catch that his luck, cunning or strong

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arm has got either on land or ice or in the sea.

Thus the dream of the two solitary men, that it might be
possible to see happy Eskimoes by that southern headland, is now
a reality. The men are there, and their wives and children too.
Only the women’s boat has disappeared as a result of changed
conditions. Nowadays, the laughing Eskimo women pull at the
oars of a clumsy boat of European origin, a craft far less well
suited to East Greenland conditions than the cleverly constructed
women’s boat, the Eskimoes’ own ingenious invention that was
used by them for centuries. Or an outboard motor may drive the
boat across the sea with water foaming at the bows. The buzz of
the motor is our mechanized age’s modem accompaniment to the
age-old travelling songs of the Eskimo.

A little to the north of Scorcsby Sound is Kong Oscars Fjord,
whose waters are so calm and sunny in the summer; it is a place
of wild mountains, yet there is more noise of powerful motors
there, than anywhere else along those coasts that once were so
quiet. Winter and summer Danish engineers are using motor-
made power and high explosives to drill and blast their way into
the mountains, where their greedy arms scoop out the mineral
deposits, which Danish geologists have found and which have
been lying hidden deep within the East Greenland mountains
ever since the flaming inferno of the world’s beginning.

The din of big stone-crushers throbs out far across the land, and
strings of lorries drive down to the shore where powerful motor-
vessels lie waiting to take the wealth of East Greenland through
the pack-ice and across the Atlantic to the refineries of Europe.

Even the busy spoilt people from the big cities of Europe and
America are beginning to acquire a slight personal knowledge of
the wild coastal mountains of East Greenland and of the glistening
inland ice, now that giant ’planes carrying scores of passengers
wing their way across Greenland as they fly from one continent
to the other.

As the ’plane roars along above those desolate stretches the
pampered passengers sit in their soft armchairs, eating delicious

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food or drinking cocktails, perhaps dozing, or being bored and
looking out of the window in search of distraction, they shake their
heads despairingly: ‘Good God, what a country!’

It may happen that someone with an inquiring mind looks
down at the inland ice or at the mighty coastal mountains, and
even gives a thought to those who half a century ago did the
pioneer work in the land below him, struggling forward foot by
foot across the inland ice or following tire tall riven coastal
mountains in a boat or by sledge — people who were silly enough
to think that the land that even from 15,000 feet looks so gr im
and awful, would remain desolate and uninhabited ‘for all
eternity.’

So nany unexpected things have happened in East Greenland
during the last fifty years, and especially in the last thirty, that
the few men who knew the country in its original state and thought
that it would stay like that for ever, have had to admit that
nowadays everything is possible.

The pioneers would have needed the imagination of a romancer
to have bexn able to foresee that within a few years that poor,
harsh and desolate land would become a bone of contention
between two brother nations, and that before forty years had
passed, a Danish military unit would be stationed on its coasts.

That, however, was what happened: the former when Nor¬
wegian trappers in an act of youthful presumption occupied parts
of East Greenland and aroused a wave of popular feeling in
Norway which then claimed sovereignty over the country that all
other nations regarded as a Danish colony, and which had been
mapped and explored very largely by Danes, those who could not
stay quietly at their own safe firesides.

The matter was settled by the International Court in the Hague
which pronounced the stretches of coast in dispute, in fact the
whole coast of East Greenland (as, indeed, the whole of Green¬
land) to have been Danish always, so that it must remain under
Danish sovereignty, until — no, perhaps not until the end of
time, that is a thing you can no longer assert in our breathless age,

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when developments that before took thousands of years are now
accomplished in so very few.

When the second world war had been raging a year or two, we
in Denmark heard vague incredible rumours of a small Danish
army in East Greenland, of warlike preparations and even actual
fighting there.

I had been able to understand and accept previous events on
those coasts, even the squabbling between Denmark and Norway
over the inheritance of their remote ancestors’ right to Greenland,
but these reports of warfare on the coast of North-east Greenland
seemed quite unnatural and impossible, and I felt that they must
be lies and invented, misunderstandings of rumours brewed in the
cauldron of the war atmosphere.

But when Fate intervened and took me to America in the
autumn of 1944 and shortly afterwards landed me in Greenland,
to my immeasurable surprise I saw with my own eyes that the
reports were true. What I had thought quite inconceivable was
nonetheless a fact, even though the Danish Greenland ‘force’
consisted only of eight men, of whom four were officers, three
N.G.Os and only one a private.

This little force, surely the smallest in tire world, for all its size
and extraordinary composition, had done good service in skir¬
mishes with the Germans who had established a meteorological
station on Sabine Island, which sent back weather reports to
Germany so that the pilots of Hitler’s bombers could have some
idea in advance of what the weather would be like when they
went to bomb the towns and cities of England.

There was a ‘battle’ in which the Danes were defeated. One
N.C.O. was shot and the Germans burned the Danish HQ, and
presumably thought that thereby they had made themselves
masters of East Greenland. There, however, they were wrong, lor
the Danes were good sledgers and knew the country; they made
their way to Scoresby Sound as fast as they could, and from there
wirelessed to the Americans on Iceland giving them the position
of the German weather-reporting station on Sabine Island.

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The Americans did not need telling twice, but acted straight¬
away. A squadron of bombers took off at once and shortly after¬
wards fire and bombs were raining down on the German buildings
which went up in flames, and a German ship that lay frozen-in in
the harbour was sent to the bottom. That was the end of that
meteorological station, for its crew disappeared mysteriously,
presumably on board a plane they had summoned. Weather
reports from East Greenland were of such importance to the
Germans, however, that they again tried to set up a station, this
time on Shannon Island, at Alabama's old winter harbour. They
were not left in peace there cither. The Danes found them, and
although there were about thirty Germans, the six Danes made a
night attack. They shot a German officer who surprised them,
but had to withdraw when they were subjected to murderous fire.
They got away, however, thanks to their familiarity with the
country and its conditions.

The wireless did the rest, and as soon as a ship could slip through
the pack-ice, the Americans were there with men and a gun, but
they arrived too late: the Germans had again been evacuated by
plane, and the only traces of them the Americans found were an
empty house and the wreck of their boat which lay crushed in the
ice, frozen fast to the land.

That was a great disappointment for the Americans, but Fate
made up for it when one of their reconnaissance planes located a
fresh German landing on Little Koldcwey, the same island that
had stood like a black silhouette in the middle of the midday glow,
when Ivcr and I, forty years before, had sat in the little hut at
Darunarks Havn gazing longingly through the window in die
vain hope of seeing the others coming.

That meteorological station had to be wiped out at any price,
and in the middle of October with its cold, storms and darkness,
a large new American icc-brcakcr with engines that developed
12,000 h.p. forced her way through the pack-ice and reached the
island, where the Americans completely surprised the Germans
and took them all prisoner, and sank a German expedition ship

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with gunfire. The icebreaker herself, however, made a good
target for an enemy U-boat that happened to be there and it
fired two torpedoes, which luckily both exploded in the ice. The
U-boat then disappeared.

Shortly afterwards the icebreaker’s own plane spotted yet
another German expedition ship lying frozen in severe pack-ice,
where she seemed to be safe from enemy attack. The captain of
die icebreaker thought otherwise, and he did in fact get his ship
through the ice and reached the other, which had to surrender.
The most nordicrly naval battle in history thus ended in a
decisive victory for the Americans — it was, indeed, a considerable
feat.

When I came to Greenland I met this icebreaker’s commander,
Commander Charles W. Thomas, at the American base at
Julianehaab, and it was he who told me about the military actions
on the East Greenland coast and of the sea-fight by night off
Koldewey Island, a thrilling story.

But as he was telling it to me, he suddenly broke off and said:
‘But I had almost forgotten that you know these parts. I have
read your book, and I imagine that to you, one of the pioneers
in the country, what has happened must seem a very strange, and
probably also a very regrettable, development: that a desert and
newly-discovered country should be turned into a theatre of
modern warfare with aeroplanes, wireless and great activity.’

The Commander was right: inconceivably much has happened
in East Greenland since Iver and I fought our way along its
coast in 1910. The land that I considered must, for good or evil,
remain untouched by civilization till the world’s end, has in the
course of a few years become one of civilization’s stamping
grounds: the motor has triumphed over the wilderness and its
hum can be felt, almost heard — throughout those wide lands,
where before silence was a thing that was almost palpable.

The motor has had its day and good use has been made of it.
Now, I suppose, we have the age of the atom and new fantastic
forces are being developed. In ten years time motors will be

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antiquated, thrust aside by other inventions that will be stronger
and have an even greater effect on all aspects of life.

Anything can happen now, everything is possible and one no
longer dares to say of even the most fantastic statement about new
technical inventions: that is impossible! I have long given up my
view that East Greenland must remain the desolate and empty
land that Iver and I knew, and which we liked, despite the
bitterly hard conditions it offered two wayfarers.

324